A dunk is a field goal scored by forcing the ball down through the hoop from above the rim with one or both hands.
The dunk is worth the same two points as a layup, but no other two points carry its cultural weight. The shooter rises above the rim, ten feet off the floor, and forces the ball downward through the hoop, a scoring play that doubles as a statement. The league once banned it entirely, from 1967 to 1976, in an era when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's dominance made the dunk a rulebook argument; its return restored the sport's most theatrical finish.
Technique has its own vocabulary: tomahawks, windmills, reverse dunks, and posters, the fan term for dunking directly over a defender. The annual Slam Dunk Contest, first held at the ABA All-Star Game in 1976 and adopted by the NBA in 1984, turned the play into a judged art form, with the 1988 duel between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins as its defining edition.
For quiz purposes the dunk is a reminder that the box score is colour blind. It records the two points and nothing else, so dunk history lives in records of a different kind: contest titles, famous posters retold for decades, and the unofficial title of most dunks in a career, a stat only modern tracking can answer.
In use"The centre caught the lob and threw down a dunk that shook the stanchion."