ATLANTA -- New Jersey's Jason Kidd was accurate when it counted, beating pal Gary Payton in the first All-Star Skills Challenge on Saturday night by making only three mistakes in the finals.

Contestants had to make a layup, dribble through obstacles, throw a chest pass and bounce pass, hit a 3-pointer, throw an outlet pass then dribble again before completing their run with another layup.

All four players were point guards.

"I think the NBA is doing the right thing in showing that there's just more than scoring or dunking -- dribbling and passing,'' Kidd said. "It's not about doing anything fancy, just the fundamentals of the game.''

In the final against Payton, Kidd was perfect through the first four stations and missed only one shot from the top of the key. Two errant outlet passes followed, but he quickly negotiated the pylons and made a layup for a time of 35.1 seconds.

At least he was consistent; his time in the opening round was 35.3.

Payton, who plays for the Seattle SuperSonics, went next and immediately had difficulty with the chest pass, missing three times. He lost even more time when he missed his first bounce pass and ran past the ball rack, and he couldn't make it up even though he was flawless through the rest of the run.

"I messed up,'' Payton said, laughing. "When I missed the first pass, I was still on good time, then I ran past the ball. If I would've grabbed the ball on the first time, it would've been real close on time.''

San Antonio's Tony Parker and Phoenix's Stephon Marbury were eliminated in the first round. Parker missed all five of his shots from the top of the key, and Marbury never got the chest pass through in five tries.

Payton breezed through round one, throwing all perfect passes and missing only one attempt on his shots. His time of 31.3 was four seconds better than Kidd, but all it did was get him in the finals.

Either way, Kidd savored his victory.

"I finally won something at the All-Star game,'' he said.