SET REPORT

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!
Reported by: John Perry

Fisher and Brown play MTWI

The 2011 NBA All Stars game wrapped this weekend at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles with Kobe Bryant bringing it home for the West coast! NBC got-in on a little bit of NBA action too by welcoming NBA players Derek Fisher and Shannon Brown to the 60-second circle on “Minute to Win It” to use their athletic skills with household objects.

Laker All-Star players Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol made special appearances on the show to support the players!

Host Guy Fieri introduced casually-dressed Fisher and Brown to the stage. No- they weren’t wearing their NBA gear! Both played for their charities, each of which focuses on helping needy American childern. Brown played for the Shannon Brown foundation and Fisher played for the University of Arkansas Foundation Inc. Six Laker Girls took to the stage to cheer the players-on wearing glittery purple skirts and waving pom poms. For most of the 60-second games three Laker Girls stood on each side of the stage while encouraging the players.

Everyone in the audience was given Laker “thunder sticks” or pom poms to cheer with. Many audience members wore their favorite NBA jerseys – of which Lakers jerseys were predominant! One funny moment came when Derek Fisher called-out a guy in a Celtics jersey for everybody to boo, but the Celtics guy took it in good spirits.

Fisher and Brown’s wives were in the audience to give their support. Brown is newly married to R&B singer Monica.

Bryant cameo for support!

Some of the “Minute to Win Games” these players had to attempt to conquer were: Nice Build – they had to work together to make a pyramid out of reams of paper; Whipper Snapper – a small carpet is used to fling or bounce a ping-pong ball into a basket on the floor; Speed Eraser – the two players both tried to bounce pencils into drinking glasses; Gettin Juggy With It – player must balance four empty office-sized water jugs on top of each other; Just Knock It Off – player has to use a lasso style rope to knock four out of five empty soda cans a top of full soda cans; Ball Cap – Ten empty bottles are lined up on a table. Each bottle has an upside-down bottle cap on it. The player has to drop a ball onto the bottle cap, flipping the cap away, and landing the ball on the lip of the bottle. the player must get five out of ten.

We also saw a new game that we weren’t familiar with called Cantenna – Six empty soda cans are on the floor attached by their tabs to a wire or string which has grooves in it. The player must move the cans up the wire and hang them on the grooves, without the cans falling to the floor.

Laker teammates and All-Star players Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol made cameos on the show via pre-recorded video with a message to wish Brown and Fisher luck in their game play.

The noise from the thunder sticks and the rambunctious crowd, made this one of the loudest “Minute to Win It” tapings that I’ve been too.

The NBA players’ episode (shot in January) will air on NBC Wednesday, March 16 (8-10pm ET)