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Mike McClung repeats in NBA dunk contest, Damian Lillard wins 3-point contest: All the highlights

NY TIMESBy


INDIANAPOLIS — The names on the trophies for the NBA’s two major games on Saturday’s All-Star Night remain the same from year to year.

D-League player Mike McClung, who shocked the world last February by winning the Slam Dunk Contest in Salt Lake City, did it again in Indianapolis, jumping over the 7-foot-1 Shaquille in the final round. O’Neal defeated Jaylen Brown and received a perfect score of 50 points from the judges.

In an earlier three-point contest, Damian Lillard hit the final shot from the final frame, beating Trae Young for his second straight win of the tournament.

McClung, 25, who has played in a total of four NBA games in his career, won a game that featured the second G League player, Jacob Toppin, the 2022 Brother of 2018 NBA slam dunk champion Obi Toppin. McClung also jumped over two guys for a dunk, throwing the ball under the basket while flying toward the rim, then catching the ball again and dunking, placing his high school jersey over Shaq’s massive frame, jumping over him and finishing A reverse slam dunk.

“It was so cool for Shaq to wear my high school jersey,” McClung said. “Man, it almost makes you excited that he’s going to do it. I told him, ‘Well, you put it on.’ He said, ‘You better not miss the dunk.’ “I was like, ‘Well, I’m not going to miss this.'”

Two current NBA players didn’t perform that well in the Slam Dunk Contest. Miami Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. was the first player off the board, while Boston Celtics All-Star Brown was booed after nearly every dunk, a clear sign that fans thought His score was way too high for the dunks he executed, especially compared to McClung.

Brown, the first All-Star in years to compete in the dunk contest, put “pressure” on McClung on his final dunk by donning a Mickey Mouse-sized glove on his left hand, then leaping and using that hand to go from Someone caught a ball on his head. Glove hands and dunk.

“I think ultimately (in) this age of media, some players are afraid of turning it into a meme or something like that,” Brown said. “Like I wanted to come out and have fun, that’s what I did.”

McClung, who now plays for the Orlando Magic’s G-League affiliate, is the first to win back-to-back dunk dunks since Zach LaVine in 2015 and 2016. McClung, LaVine, Nate Robinson, Jason Richardson and Michael Jordan are the only players to win back-to-back slam dunks. Slam dunk contest.

“This is my story and I accept it,” McClung said.

Lillard is the first to win two consecutive three-point shooting championships since Jason Kapono in 2007 and 2008, and joins Kapono, Larry Bird, Craig Hodges, Mark Pray Si, Jeff Hornacek and Peja Stojakovic have been the three-point contest champions for many consecutive years.

He outlasted Young and 2022 NBA three-point shooting champion Karl-Anthony Towns in the finals and held on in a four-player tiebreaker in which three finalists and Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton had to shoot. 30 seconds (normal round is 70 seconds) to advance to the first round.

Towns led the way in the finals with 22 points. Young beat him with 24 points, while Lillard had only scored 24 before his final shot.

“I know once I hit the 3-pointers, the 3-pointers, if I knock those down and give myself an advantage before the last one and get into my bonus rack, I can Win the game.” “So I knew I had a good chance.

“When I got to the last row, I didn’t know my exact score, but when I missed a few, I heard the crowd cheering and oohing and aahing. Once they did it over and over, I knew I stayed alive because I knew if it was all over for me, they would stop. The next two shots, I missed again, and then I caught the next one and I knew I needed that to win. “

Sandwiched between the 3-point and dunk contests is the historic shooting contest between Stephen Curry and WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu, which Curry won. The annual All-Star Saturday takes place on a new, forgiving LED glass court developed by German company ASB GlassFloor and installed at Lucas Oil Football Stadium for All-Star Weekend. Throughout the night, the floor’s colors, graphics, and messages changed.

The Pacers’ trio of Haliburton, Myles Turner and Benedict Maturin — MVPs of Friday night’s Rising Stars Game — won the annual Skills Challenge in obstacles, passing Win individual rounds in tournaments and shooting contests. Haliburton later lost the final round of the 3-point contest in the tiebreaker, but he hit a half-court shot in the skill challenge tiebreaker to seal the win for the Indiana Pacers.

“This is home cooking, hold on to it,” Turner said.

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(Photo: Stacey Revere/Getty Images)





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