The All-Star Weekend has arrived on its second day.
Compared with yesterday's mediocre Masters Game and Rookie Game, today finally ushered in a main dish that attracted much attention-the All-Star Slam Dunk Contest!
Due to the emergence of LaVine last year, the popularity of the All-Star Slam Dunk Contest continues to rise. After he confirmed that he will participate in the Slam Dunk Contest again this year, the popularity of this one may even be as popular as the ultimate feast-the All-Star Game!
On the one hand, it's because LaVine's dunking talent is too dazzling, and on the other hand, it's also inseparable from the many super dunkers participating in the dunk contest.
For example, Aaron Gordon of the Magic has a strong claim to the dunk title, so he may not lose to LaVine.
Of course, before the hard dishes are served, there are two quite good snacks, namely the skills challenge and the three-point contest.
The biggest highlight of this year's Skills Challenge is the addition of big men. Green, Cousins, Davis and Towns will represent the big men.
As the defending champion, Beverley was unexpectedly absent due to injury, and Mudiay took his place.
In addition, the new Celtics leader Isaiah Thomas also participated in the skills challenge.
This skills challenge can be regarded as setting a new record - the cutest height difference in history!
The tallest, Towns, is over 2.1 meters tall, while the shortest, Thomas, is only 1.75 meters tall. If the final champion can emerge from the two, it may become a legend.
According to the arrangement, small players and big players are divided into half areas to compete, and a winner from each half area enters the finals.
After the preliminary round and semi-finals, it seemed that even the goddess of fate was secretly promoting this wonderful story.
In the big half, Towns, the tallest player in the game, successfully won and advanced to the finals.
In the small half, Thomas Jr., the shortest player in the game, beat Clarkson.
CJ and Mudiay also successfully won and advanced.
Entering the final, Thomas Jr., who had a speed advantage, was obviously faster, but both of them finished the first boat in front of the chest for the first time, causing him to lose the small advantage brought by speed.
When it came to dribbling for a layup, unexpectedly Towns did not suffer from his speed on the court. Instead, he surpassed Thomas and completed the layup ahead of schedule.
As the two completed the layup, the smell of gunpowder on the court became stronger and stronger. They turned around to dribble and almost collided.
When it came to the final three-pointer, Towns took the first shot but unfortunately missed. Fortunately, Thomas Jr. who caught up behind him couldn't continue his touch.
"Duang! Duang! Duang!"
After both played three irons in a row, Towns finally made a three-pointer on his fourth try, successfully defeating Thomas and winning the championship.
Watching Towns win the championship, the other three big men participating in the competition, Green, Davis, and Cousins, all came up and surrounded him tightly to celebrate the birth of the first big man to win this event in history.
The spectators nearby also got excited. Maybe no one expected that this year's Skills Challenge would be so dramatic. In the area where defenders are best at, it was Towns, the center, who had the last laugh.
The first game on the second day of the All-Star Weekend brought the atmosphere to a peak.
Now enter the three-point contest.
After a while, the scene was rearranged.
The rules of the Three-Point Shooting Contest have not changed. There are 5 shooting positions on the field, and there are 5 balls in each position. 4 of them are ordinary positions. Each point has 4 ordinary balls and 1 colored ball. The color ball
A hit is worth 2 points.
The other position is a special position. The five balls are all colored balls. Each ball is worth two points. Each player can designate a position that he is best at as a shooting position.
The player with the highest score within one minute wins. The game is divided into two rounds. The three players with the highest score in the first round enter the finals to compete for the final championship!
This year's contestants include defending champion Curry, teammate Thompson, Mosaic's Harden, Clippers' Redick, Bucks' Middleton, and Suns' Booker. A total of seven players.
Among the remaining seven, Curry's good partner Thompson and Redick are regarded as Curry's biggest rivals on the road to defending the title.
In fact, everyone's predictions were only half right.
After the first round, Thompson unexpectedly ranked first with 22 points. Curry, the defending champion who appeared last, scored 21 points, and the Splash Brothers entered the finals together.
As for the last player in the finals, it is quite surprising, it is Devin Booker from the Suns.
At the end of the first round, since Harden, Redick, and Booker all scored 20 points, they needed to play an extra round, which meant shooting for 30 seconds. Whoever scored more points would advance to the finals.
Everyone originally thought that either Harden or Redick had the highest probability of entering the finals. After all, the former is the leader of the Mosaic team and the strongest shooting guard currently in service, and the latter is one of the best three-point shooters in the league in the past five seasons, and even
In individual seasons, the field goal percentage ranked first in the league!
However, I never expected that the one who had the last laugh was Booker, a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers.
He first hit 2 goals from a zero angle on the left, 3 from a 45-degree angle on the right, and then 3 more at the top of the arc. He also hit the last flower ball at the buzzer, successfully eliminating Harden and advancing with 12 points.
finals.
In the finals, Booker took the lead.
He started from the 0-degree angle on the left and only scored 1 goal at the first point. After that, his touch improved slightly, but he failed to grasp the 3 colored balls. At the last special position, he scored 3 goals.
ball and only scored 16 points.
The shortcomings of young people's inexperience have finally been revealed, and it also made the Suns players on the sidelines feel regretful. It seems that Booker will miss the three-point championship this time.
Then Curry came on the scene. He also started from a 0-degree angle on the left side and hit all 5 shots from the start. However, in the next three positions, his touch was average and he did not have the magical performance of consecutive hits.
The final 0-degree angle on the right side is a special position. Curry hit 3 colored balls, and his score was 23 points.
This result is not bad, but when he came off the court, there was no joy on Curry's face, because compared with himself last year, 23 points was obviously not enough.
Moreover, as a teammate, he knows Thompson's terrifying shooting ability better than anyone else.
Next, Thompson made his final appearance. He started from a 0-degree angle on the right side. He seemed a little nervous. He only scored 3 goals at the first point. This gave Curry on the sidelines a little hope for the playoff.
But soon, Thomson personally shattered Curry's expectations with his ability.
I saw that he first scored the last four goals from a 45-degree angle on the right wing, and then scored four goals in a row at the top of the arc.
The 0-degree angle to the left of the last point is a special position. All 5 colored balls hit... He scored 27 points!
This time, Thompson seized the opportunity, personally defeated his good partner Curry, successfully avenged the failure of the last three-point contest, and won the first three-point contest championship in his career!
Of course, as the perfect leader, Curry immediately stepped forward to celebrate with his brother after seeing Thompson win.
At this moment, Harden, who had been running with him for several consecutive years, looked at the Splash Brothers on the court with a look of helplessness on his face.
After the three-point contest ended, cheers arose one after another on the court, because they knew that the only heavyweight dish today was about to come out.
In the front row of the audience, when Wang Zelin saw the figures of LaVine and Gordon appearing on the big screen, he couldn't help but straighten his back.
After the millennium, the greatest slam dunk contest is finally about to begin!