"For a while Sunday night it appeared Joe Johnson's first All-Star start would be forgettable.

The Hawks guard barely drew iron on his first shot . He went to the bench with no points in six first-quarter minutes.

But then Johnson helped the Eastern Conference heat up later in the half.

Johnson scored on one of his familiar isolation dribble moves with a turnaround jump shot. Then he collected LeBron James' save from out of bounds and made a 3-pointer. Finally he took a long pass from Derrick Rose for a fastbreak dunk.

Johnson helped key a big run to end the first half, and the East went on to a 141-139 victory over the Western Conference in front of a record crowd of 108,713 at Cowboys Stadium.

"It was amazing," Johnson said. "I found myself looking up in the stands at all the people or up at the big screen. I enjoyed it, as usual."

Johnson, playing in his fourth straight All-Star game, finished with 10 points in 18 minutes."