O’Neal’s Dunk Is Bryant’s Top Moment

Kobe Bryant’s favorite moment of his second All-Star game?

“Watching Shaq [O’Neal] do his thing in the game--he did the 360,” Bryant said, referring to his Laker teammate’s fastbreak, spinning slam dunk in the first half Sunday.

“It caught me off guard. I didn’t know he had that in him.”

Bryant, who scored 15 points and had three assists, said he also had a move he was dying to try.

“I wanted to do the sky hook like Magic [Johnson],” Bryant said. “I had the opportunity to do it [early in the third quarter], so I threw up the sky hook.”

And it went in.

According to West Coach Phil Jackson, Bryant recognized that the crowd wanted to see Oakland products Jason Kidd and Gary Payton play together.

“He came to me and he actually said, ‘You know, Gary’s from here, Jason’s from here and they played together when they were kids. And it’ll probably be fun for the kids, I’d be willing to sit out early if you want to take me out early.”’

Bryant, a starting guard, played 28 minutes, six less than Kidd and eight more than Payton.

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Philadelphia guard Allen Iverson, who surprised a bit by looking to pass (nine assists) as much as he did to shoot (10-for-18 shooting, 26 points), said it was obvious that the West was doing everything it could to prevent Vince Carter highlight-film material.

Carter, the sensation of the slam-dunk contest Saturday, had one flying breakaway dunk but scored only 12 points Sunday and did not have an alley-oop hookup.

“All everybody talked about coming into the game was, ‘How many lobs are you going to throw to Vince?’ ” Iverson said. “And it was getting frustrating, because they didn’t want Vince to show off.

“Every time we got out on the break, they took the lob away from him.”

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Jackson said that Utah’s Karl Malone, who stayed away from the festivities until Sunday’s game, didn’t want to play more than the three minutes Jackson gave him in the first half.

“I said, ‘How much do you want to work?’ ” Jackson said. “And he said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to go more than four or five minutes. That’s enough for me.’ So we pulled him out.”