ALL-STAR GAME GLANCE.
NEWORLEANS—The 3-point shootingest team in NBA history has its first 3-point shooting champion.
Eric Gordon had to work overtime. He had to overcome the distraction of James Harden’s fishing-lure shiny jacket. He even had to tune out the smattering of boos around Smoothie King Arena, where he played for five seasons before he escaped the “dysfunction” to join the Rockets.
Gordon, however, had spent the season coming off the bench and shooting 3s. With 3½ months of preparation, he had the best round of the competition and a triumphant extra round, taking the championship before he even reached his final rack.
“We run around, we play a fast-paced game, and we shoot a lot of 3s,” Gordon said. “It kind of helps. But I just do what I do best, and that’s make a lot of 3s.”
Gordon defeated Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving in the overtime shootout, fittingly defeating a player who grabbed headlines with a flat Earth theory in a game of “around the world.”
That turned boos to cheers.
“Yeah, I heard a little bit, but I’m not worried,” Gordon said. “I was focused on trying to win.”
They did not seem to bother him. He hit four of five shots on the first rack and had by far the best round of the night. He scored 25 points in the opening round by hitting four of five shots on his rack of money balls that he placed at the top of the key as if Mike D’Antoni was calling for better spacing.
“I thought that was the easiest shot,” said Gordon, who has made 47.1 percent of his 3s from the top of the key this season. “You’ve just got to shoot dead on. That’s why I just chose to put my money rack in the middle.”
Gordon, Irving and Kemba Walker advanced to the second round, with defending champion Klay Thompson eliminated when he missed his final shot. Gordon, by virtue of his top opening round score, went last. After making three shots on his money ball rack and all five shots on his fourth rack, he needed to make just two of his final five shots to win. He made just one, sending the competition to overtime with both shooters battling fatigue.
“I’m like, ‘come on, E. Just let me go home really, really happy, or let me go home really, really happy that I was in the competition,’ ” Irving said. “So either way, I was cool with it.”
Gordon left no doubt. He went through a run making 11 of 12 shots and knocked down two more on his fourth rack to clinch the win before his final rack.
With that, he said he set his sights on another trophy.
“I definitely would like to win Sixth Man of the Year,” Gordon said. “Coach D’Antoni … when he moved me to the bench, he was like, ‘You’d better make sure you win this award and be productive.’ So as long as we continue to win and I continue to do it, I think it’s possible.
“In my career, my role has changed a lot. Early on in my career, I used to drive to the basket a lot, but I’ve always been able to shoot. Over the past four or five years, I’ve done pretty well shooting the three ball. And with the system we have now, with the Rockets, it really, really exposes it.”
It also helped him leave New Orleans again, this time with a trophy that glittered as much as the clothes on the bearded teammate hugging him.
“I always make fun of his fits, I’ll tell you,” Gordon said. “I always heard his voice when I was in that first rack. He’s just giving me confidence, but it was good just to get a win.”
Glenn Robinson III of the Indiana Pacers won the All-Star slam dunk champion. Robinson beat Derrick Jones Jr. of the Phoenix Suns in the final round. Robinson clinched the win with a perfect 50 on the fi- nal dunk of the night — going over three people for a reverse dunk and nearly touching his head on the rim in the process.
New York Knicks forward Kristaps Prozingis won the skills competition, beating Utah’s Gordon Hayward in the finals.
The three-round, obstacle-course competition tests dribbling, passing, agility and shooting skills.