⏩ 3-point contest: Curry wins second crown.
After hitting the final money ball to beat Jazz guard Mike Conley Jr. for his second career NBA 3Point Contest title, Warriors guard Stephen Curry held his shooting motion for a moment before punching the air and unleashing a yell.
Though he might not have been thrilled to participate in AllStar Weekend festivities during the coronavirus pandemic, he surely enjoyed winning the 3point Contest for the first time since 2015. It only made the victory mean more that the competition came down to the last shot. After leading the first round with a 31, Curry had 23 going into the final rack of the final round — a suspenseful moment given that he needed to top Conley’s 27.
But after making three of the first four, Curry drained the money ball — worth two — to escape with the win. A nearempty State Farm Arena in Atlanta didn’t seem to make the moment any less satisfying.
Curry said on TNT that when he attempted that final ball, his mind “kind of went blank. Whatever crowd’s in here, I could hear the temperature rise in the room.” Moments later, as he walked off the court, Curry told the Warriors’ social media team that he was dedicating his win to his teammate, Klay Thompson, who won the 3point Contest in 2016 and is out for the season with a torn Achilles tendon.
Few should not have been surprised that Curry pulled out the win. Entering his seventh career AllStar Game appearance, Curry, 32, leads the NBA with 169 3pointers this season and is on pace to finish better than 40% from 3point range (41.1%) for the 11th time. Curry’s status as the greatest longrange shooter in league history made him the easy frontrunner in a competition that included Conley, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Utah’s Donovan Mitchell and Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
But even though Curry hit 105 straight 3pointers in a practice little more than two months ago, he was far from guaranteed to emerge as the champion Sunday. The other five players in the field were fueled by the desire to beat the greatest shooter to ever live.
Until Curry hit his final ball, Conley was wellpositioned to accomplish such a feat. He posted a 28 in the first round to finish second to Curry. After Tatum recorded just a 17 in the final round, Conley —a 42.2% shooter from beyond the arc this season — posted a 27, enough to put pressure on Curry and add an element of intrigue to the contest.
By hitting the final ball and getting the trophy, Curry exorcised the memory of losses in 2016 and 2019. His two 3Point Contest titles join Peja Stojakovic, Jeff Hornacek, Mark Price and Jason Kapono for second most behind Craig Hodges and Larry Bird, both of whom won three. Curry is the only multitime winner to not win in backtoback years.
What made Sunday’s title unique was that it came minutes before Curry had to take the floor for the AllStar Game. To cram AllStar Weekend events into one night amid a pandemic, the NBA held the Skills Challenge and the 3Point Contest before the game. The Slam Dunk Contest was at halftime.