2024 NBA All-Star Saturday Night recap: Lillard, Curry, McClung shine

byBelly


The 2024 NBA All-Star Saturday
Night at the Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis saw some
electrifying highlights across all four events, including a
spectacular shooting display and jaw-dropping dunks. Here’s a quick
recap of everything that went down.

Team Pacers rule 2024 Kia Skills Challenge

After a tight contest, Tyrese
Haliburton, Bennedict Mathurin and Myles Turner of Team Pacers take
the crown of the NBA’s Skills Challenge. The hometown team bested
other competitors in the field including Team Top Picks (Victor
Wembanyama, Paolo Banchero and Anthony Edwards) and Team All-Stars
(Trae Young, Tyrese Maxey and Scottie Barnes).

Team Pacers got off to a hot
start, winning the first two events in the Three-man Relay and
Passing Round with a total time of 1:07 (relay) and 92 points
(passing round), with each amounting to 100 challenge points. Team
All-Stars then got hot in the shooting round to claim the event,
which was worth 200 challenge points.

With the score tied at 200
challenge points each, the two teams had a tie-breaker round, which
was a half-court shot. Team All-Stars went first and nailed the
shot with a total time of 58.8 seconds, but Haliburton and Team
Pacers responded to hit their’s more than 20 seconds quicker to win
the challenge.

This was the second win of
All-Star Weekend for the home team, after Mathurin also won the MVP
award of the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday night.

Damian Lillard wins back-to-back Three-Point Shootout
titles

The Milwaukee Bucks’ Damian
Lillard earned his second-straight Starry Three-Point Contest title
in a thriller on Saturday night.

At the final rack and needing
just one shot to seal the title, Lillard missed out on his first
four attempts before sinking the last shot to defend his crown in
style.

He became the first back-to-back
winner of the event since Jason Kapono, who won in 2007 and
2008.

Lillard was joined by the
Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young and the Minnesota Timberwolves’
Karl-Anthony Towns in the final round and both scored 24 points
apiece, which set the stage for “Dame Time.”

Steph Curry Beats Sabrina Ionescu in “Steph vs. Sabrina” Shootout

Golden State Warriors superstar
Stephen Curry needed every point he could muster to fend off
Sabrina Ionescu of the WNBA’s New York Liberty to win the
first-ever NBA vs WNBA 3-Point Challenge.

Ionescu, who set the record for
points scored in a Three-Point Shootout with 37, put immense
pressure on Curry by tallying 26 points to start the
face-off.

However, the greatest shooter of
all-time was not to be deterred as he displayed cold-blooded
shooting and ended up with 29 points to win the event.

The historic first-of-its-kind
event was a success, with each made shot triggering a donation from
State Farm to the NBA Foundation to support economic empowerment in
the Black community.

Mac McClung defends 2024 AT&T Slam Dunk Contest
title

Mac McClung saved his best for
last as he became the first player since Zach LaVine to win the
AT&T Slam Dunk Contest in back-to-back years.

The Osceola Magic guard pulled
off a reverse windmill dunk while jumping over NBA legend Shaquille
O’Neal to garner the only perfect score of the evening.

McClung defeated the field of
competitors that included the Boston Celtics’ and NBA All-Star
Jaylen Brown, Miami Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. and New York Knicks’
Jacob Toppin to defend his title.



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