Mac McClung repeats in NBA dunk contest, Damian Lillard wins 3-point contest: Full highlights

INDIANAPOLIS — The names on the trophies haven't changed from year to year in any of the NBA's major contests on All-Star Saturday night.

Mac McClung, the G League player who shocked the world by winning the dunk contest in Salt Lake City last February, did it again in Indianapolis, defeating Jaylen Brown by jumping over the 7-foot-1 Shaquille O'Neal in the final round of the Perfect 50 of Judges.

In the 3-point contest earlier, Damian Lillard hit the final money ball on his last rack to edge out Trae Young for his second straight win in the event.

McClung, 25, who has played a total of four NBA games in his career, won a contest that included a second G Leaguer — Jacob Toppin, brother of 2022 NBA champion Obi Toppin. McClung, who also jumped over two people for a dunk, dropped the ball as he rose to the rim before catching it again and whipping it to someone else, placed his high school jersey over Shaq's massive frame, jumped over him and finished a reverse slam. .

“Shaq was so cool when he wore my high school jersey,” McClung said. “Man, it almost makes you emotional because he's going to do it. And I was like, 'Okay, put it on.' And he said, 'You better not miss the dunk.' I was like, 'Okay, I'm not going to miss that.'

Current NBA players have not fared well in the dunk contest. Miami Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. was the first player eliminated, while Brown, an All-Star for the Boston Celtics, was booed after nearly every dunk in a clear indication from fans that they felt his grades were too high for To the dunks he made. , especially when compared to McClung.

Brown, the first star to compete in the dunking contest in years, put “pressure” on McClung on his final dunk by placing a Mickey Mouse-sized glove on his left hand, then jumping up and taking the ball off someone's head with that. Glove and immersion.

“I think at the end of the day (in) this media age, some players are afraid to turn it into a meme or something like that,” Brown said. “Like I wanted to go out and enjoy it, which I did.”

McClung, who now plays for the G League's Orlando Magic, is the first back-to-back dunk winner since Zach LaVine in 2015 and 2016. McClung, LaVine, Nate Robinson, Jason Richardson and Michael Jordan are the only players to win consecutively. Dunk contests.

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

Lillard is the first back-to-back three-point champion since Jason Kapono in 2007 and 2008 and joins Kapono, Larry Bird, Craig Hodges, Mark Price, Jeff Hornacek and Peja Stojakovic as winners of the three-point contest in consecutive years.

He outlasted Young and 2022 NBA 3-point winner Karl-Anthony Towns in the Finals, and also persevered through a four-way tiebreaker in which the three finalists and Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton had to shoot for 30 seconds (regular rounds are 70 seconds) to be able to shoot for 30 seconds. Exit in the first round.

Towns finished first in the finals and scored 22 points. Young beat him with 24 points, and Lillard was stuck at 24 on his last rack until that final shot.

“I knew once I got to that three-point ball, deep, that I could win it if I dropped it and gave myself the advantage of going to my bonus rack there before that last one,” Lillard said. “So I knew I had a good chance.

“When I got to the last rack, I didn't know my exact score, but when I missed two, I heard the crowd cheering and cheering. Once they kept doing it over and over again, I knew I was still alive because I knew they would have stopped if it was over for me.” I missed the next two balls again, then I caught the next ball and realized I needed it to win.

Sandwiched between the three-point and dunk contests was the historic shootout between Stephen Curry and WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu, which Curry won. The annual All-Star Saturday ceremony was held on a new, tolerant LED glass stadium developed by German company ASB GlassFloor, and installed at Lucas Oil Football Stadium for All-Star weekend. The floor colors, drawings and messages changed throughout the night.

The Pacers' trio of Haliburton, Myles Turner and Benedict Mathurin — the Rising Stars' MVP on Friday night — won the annual skills challenge, emerging victorious in the individual rounds of the obstacle course, passing competition and shooting competition. Haliburton, who later lost the tiebreaker to reach the final round of the three-point contest, drained a half-court shot in the skills challenge tiebreaker to seal the win for the Indiana Pacers.

“It's home cooking, keep pushing it,” Turner said.

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(Photo: Stacey Revere/Getty Images)