Reliving Some Great Dunk Contest Moments in Celtics History
Just when it seemed everyone was (rightly) proclaiming the NBA dunk contest dead, along came Minnesota’s Zach LaVine to perform some CPR.
The 19-year-old guard stole the show Saturday night, throwing down a few of the best dunks the stale contest has seen in years.
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LaVine’s performance harkened back to the early days of the contest, when skill, athleticism and creativity trumped dunking over subcompact sedans.
No Celtics joined this year, but the hometown team has had a few of great moments in what was once a marquee event of the basketball calendar.
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Dee Brown was the first Celtic to take home the dunk contest trophy in 1991 with the above performance, wowing the judges with his athleticism and creativity. Highlights include a two-handed slam that started between his legs and ended behind his back and a flying one-handed dunk from just a step inside the foul line.
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Gerald Green’s biggest accomplishment in a Celtics uniform – aside from being part of the trade that netted Kevin Garnett – was his trophy-winning performance in the 2007 dunk contest.
The sophomore Celtic put on a clinic at the dunk contest, literally dunking over his closest competition in Nate Robinson and executing a 360-degree windmill dunk whilst leaping over a table.
Green and Brown were the only Celtics to win the dunk contest, but they’re not the team’s only players to come up big during All-Star Weekend. Larry Bird was the dominant force in the early years of the three-point contest, winning the first three competitions. Here’s his gutsy, threepeat-sealing performance from 1988.
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Bird and Chicago’s Craig Hodges (who also threepeated) remain the only players to win three times.
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