The 2008 All-Star Game is underway and BDL's own J.E. Skeets is live in the New Orleans Arena posting the latest highlights, happenings and anything else fit for digital print.

• OK, we’ve finally made it to our seat. Both All-Star squads are warming up. The Armadillo Cowboy, Joe Johnson, hasn’t made a shot yet. Watch for him tonight. I always seemed to play my best when I had a horrible warm-up.

• The scoreboard just informed me that Antawn Jamison’s middle name is Cortez. The more you know ...

• We’ve got some new mascots in the building tonight. Tonight’s roster includes the Raptor, Lucky the Leprechaun, the Hornets' two mascots, that Magic monstrosity and some weird Blazers' mascot. But where's Thunder? Did he get arrested for accidentally kicking a cop in the face while break dancing again?

• The West may be dominating the East on the basketball court this year, but the East guys would absolutely kill the West on the dance floor. In fact, that should be a Saturday competition:  DANCE OFF!

• Those were some sexy national anthems. Both of them.

• Scott stuck to his word. We're less than three minutes in and Kobe’s already gone. Did he even touch the ball?

• It’s official: Dwight Howard’s nickname is "Superman." People can't stop screaming it from the upper bowl. I hope this means we can start calling Gerald Green "Cupcake."

• I completely agree with a few of you in the comments: these two-tone jerseys are atrocious. Maybe this was the NBA’s way of saying we had enough worthy candidates to fill four All-Star teams this year.

• All right, let’s take another stab at this: Eddie Sefko at the Dallas News is reporting that the Mavericks and Nets have agreed to a retooled deal that will finally get Jason Kidd to Texas. How cool would it be if Kidd switched teams at half? (Update: Ludden confirms the rumor. Expect the deal to be finalized Monday.)

• They just showed former Saints' QB Archie Manning up on the scoreboard and the arena went nuts. This really is football country.

• Chris Paul with the assist to Brandon Roy. Get used to reading that line for the next, oh, about 12 years.

• OK, that LeBron-Dwight alley-oop show was one of best minutes in All-Star history.

• KD with an e-mail assist: "June 2003: Toronto drafts Chris Bosh, Vince Carter complains, says he would prefer to trade Bosh for an (unnamed) veteran contributor. February 2008: Chris Bosh makes his third-consecutive ASG. Vince Carter watches from home." Ahhh ... sweet, sweet delicious irony. (Thanks, KD!)

• And that, my friends, is why Sheed makes a brilliant All-Star Game representative. He just swished a deep three from the top ... with his left-hand. He's 1-for-2 with his left tonight

• Apparently, the halftime score is: East 74, West 65. (I hadn’t even looked until now.) That was a big second quarter for both teams. The East dropped a cool 40 in it.

• LeBron looks like the early MVP. He’s got 12 points, seven assists and six rebounds in just 12 minutes of burn. Paul (seven points, six assists) and Roy (11 points, five boards) look to be the West’s best picks should they come back to win this thing.

• Uh oh, the East are starting to pull away here. C’mon, West, please don’t let Ray Allen turn this into a yawner.

• Sheed’s left-handed shooting percentage update: 33%.

• Believe it or not, this arena is far from full capacity. There are empty sections all around the upper bowl. Section 327 -- up in one of the corners -- is specifically bad.

• We've had a few fantastic tributes during timeouts here at the arena. In the first half, they paid tribute to Louisiana basketball greats Bob Love, Bob Pettit and Willis Reed, and just now, they did something for the late, great Pete Maravich. Commercials suck.

• That was a fairly uneventful third quarter. But at least the East’s lead didn’t get too out of hand. 13 points is doable.

• Amare’s flush with Dwight on his hip: Play of the game? It definitely got the bench up.

• Chris Paul is single-handedly keeping this game close. When he’s not busy setting bigs up for dunks, he’s hitting little pull-up jumpers in the lane. It's been said before, but the All-Star game really is in great hands with these young points running the show.

• Tie game, five minutes to go. Perfect. And here comes the defensive intensity. LeBron just rejected CP3 -- “You ain’t takin’ my MVP sucka! -- and Duncan followed that up by stuffing LBJ.

• Our crunch-time line-ups read like so: Ray, LeBron, Kidd, D-Ho and Wade for the East; CP3, Roy, Duncan, Amare and Dirk for the West.

• LEBRON HATES DA GERMANS!!!!

• And he really wants that MVP crown. After Wade hit that acrobatic "and-1" off the glass, LBJ spun around and dropped a super serious fist-pump. 27 points, nine assists, eight rebounds, two blocks, a steal and the win. MVP? Book it.

• That was a pretty darn good All-Star game. It had its lulls and could’ve done without that stupid charging call on Paul at the end, but overall it was really entertaining. Thanks for reading along.

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