15 February,2010 11:40 AM IST | | Agencies
A record crowd of 108,713 turned out Sunday for the NBA All-Star game at Cowboys Stadium, where Dwyane Wade led the Eastern Conference to a 141-139 victory over the West.
Miami's Wade had 28 points and won Most Valuable Player honors, and Dallas Native Chris Bosh made the winning free throws with five seconds to play.
The Western Conference had a chance to win the annual mid-season exhibition, but Carmelo Anthony misfired on a three-point attempt.
The biggest cheer of the night came when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and Jerry Jones, owner of the NFL's Cowboys, took the court to announce the record-setting attendance.
In addition to being a record for a basketball game, it was the largest in the brief history of the Cowboys' billion-dollar home.
They were booing at the end when Wade went to the line and made two free throws with 12.7 seconds left. Dirk Nowitzki of the hometown Mavericks tied it with two of his own five seconds later before Bosh put the East on top for the final time.
Wade, who earned MVP honors when Miami beat Dallas in the 2006 NBA finals, added 11 assists and six rebounds. Cleveland star LeBron James scored 25 points while Bosh had 23 and 10 rebounds.
The undisputed star of the show, however, was the building. The NBA had predicted a crowd of about 90,000, but the hopes of Cuban and Jones to reach 100,000 were more than satisfied.
It attendance figure easily broke the previous record for the largest crowd to watch a basketball game of 78,129, set for a university contest between the University of Kentucky and Michigan State University at Detroit's Ford Field on December 13, 2003.
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