With seven seconds left in Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game, Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard sent forward Dirk Nowitzki to the foul line where the Dallas Mavericks veteran tied the game at 139-all before the East eventually came away with a 141-139 win at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Dwight Howard (Photo by Fernando Media, NBA Photos)

Howard, making his fourth consecutive appearance in the event and his third consecutive start, scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, grabbed five rebounds and blocked three shots in the win.

It was East teammate Chris Bosh from the Toronto Raptors that put the game away with two free throws of his own as five seconds remained. Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony hoisted a last-second 3-pointer for the West that came up short.

The win gave Magic coach Stan Van Gundy his second NBA All-Star Game victory in as many tries. He previously coached the East to a 125-115 win in 2005 in Denver while head coach of the Miami Heat.

Magic assistant coach Patrick Ewing wasn’t as fortunate, though, while coaching the sophomores in the Rookie Challenge. Ewing could only watch as his team fell 140-128 to the first-year players.

As for Howard, he made several highlight-worthy plays on the night.

After starting the game by losing the opening tip to San Antonio’s Tim Duncan, he lit up the scoreboard early by going overtop Duncan while down low in the lane, then hitting a 3-pointer from the top of the arc off an assist from the game’s most valuable player, Dwyane Wade.

Howard played the entire first quarter, scoring 11 points to help the East get out to an early 37-34 lead after the opening 12 minutes. In the period, he went 2-for-3 from the foul line and forced a three-point play by going strong at Nowitzki and following that up by slamming home an alley-oop from Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics.

He returned to the court in the third period and promptly dribbled coast-to-coast in the opening two minutes before clearing the lane and slamming down a thunderous dunk. A couple minutes later he jammed home another alley-oop pass, this time from Wade.

Howard, one of 27 players named to the 2010-12 USA Basketball Men’s National Team last week, scored his final points on the night on a hook shot midway through the fourth quarter. Following the 2009-10 season he’ll start training again with many of the players he won a gold medal with as part of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team.

Howard received the third-most NBA All-Star votes overall this year – behind LeBron James and Kobe Bryant – with more than 2.3 million to his credit.