Mcclung repeats as slam dunk champion
INDIANAPOLIS — Mac Mcclung went back to school to win his second consecutive NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
He asked Shaquille O’neal to squeeze into Mcclung’s old high school jersey, then grabbed the ball out of the big man’s hands and leaped clear over him to draw five perfect scores on his final attempt Saturday night.
Mcclung compiled 98.8 points on his last two dunks, while Boston Celtics All-star Jaylen Brown finished with 97.8.
“Shaq was so cool to put that high school jersey on, man, it almost made me emotional that he would do that,” Mcclung said. “When he put it on, he said, ‘You better not miss it.’ I said, ‘OK, I won’t miss it.’”
Unlike some of his prior attempts, Mcclung made this dunk on his first try and was rewarded handsomely by the five judges.
As a result, the highflying, 6-foot-2 guard who plays for Orlando’s G League affiliate, the Osceola Magic, became the sixth player with two or more Slam Dunk titles and the first to win in back-to-back seasons since Zach Lavine in 2015 and 2016.
Hey Mac, gonna go for an unprecedented third straight title next year?
“I don’t know. We’ll think about it,” said Mcclung, who led his team to the G League championship last year. “I’m not sure yet.”
The only player with three Slam Dunk crowns is Nate Robinson, but those didn’t come in a row.
Lillard defends 3-point crown
Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard defended his NBA 3-point contest title by finishing with 26 points in the final round.
Lillard, who won with Portland last season, became the eighth player to win at least two 3-point crowns and the first since Jason Kapono in 2007 and 2008 to do it in consecutive years.
Lillard beat out Trae Young of Atlanta and Karl-anthony Towns of Minnesota, who both had 24 points in the last round.
“I think last year it was a lower score to win. Like, nobody really shot the ball great,” Lillard said. “This one, I felt like everybody shot at a pretty high clip in the first round, in the tiebreaking round and the final round. Everyone shot well, so this one was, I’d say, a little more fun.”
Curry outlasts WNBA’S Ionescu
Stephen Curry was on a roll — and it was barely enough to beat Sabrina
Ionescu.
And fittingly, he won by three.
The Golden State star and NBA’S all-time 3-point king beat Ionescu 29-26 in the Steph vs. Sabrina competition at All-star Saturday night, the first such him-vs.-her event of its kind at the league’s weekend showcase.
“For us to deliver a show like that, it was perfect,” Curry said. “As much excitement as you can build in that short amount of time with two great shooters going at it. This is something we’ll remember for a long time.”
Ionescu, the New York Liberty star, won the WNBA’S 3-point shootout at its All-star weekend last year with a record 37 points, smashing Curry’s NBA shootout mark of 31 points. From there, a challenge was thrown down and the plan was concocted for them to meet at All-star weekend.
So they did, and it felt like the main event of the night.
“Hopefully, this isn’t the last time we do this,” Ionescu said.
Given how the fans — and really, everybody from both the NBA and WNBA — seemed to love it, it likely won’t be the last time, especially since Curry and Ionescu talked afterward about adding partners to the mix next year when All-star weekend just happens to be in San Francisco, the area where he plays and she calls home.