The no longer so unknown
Mac McClung , G-League champion, won his second consecutive dunk contest in the
NBA All Star Game
early this Sunday
and left everyone speechless after
"climbing Everest"
to deposit with violence the ball into one of the rings at the
Gainbridge Fieldhouse
in Indianapolis.
The thing is that the 1.88 meter point guard, with a wandering step in the basketball elite - he plays very well in the development league -
went above the 2m18 and increasingly generous humanity of a Shaquille O'Neal
dressed in the contestant's own high school XXXL t-shirt, to snatch the ball from his hands and earn five perfect scores on his last attempt.
McClung finished with a total of 98.8 points on his last two dunks, one point ahead of
Boston Celtics star
Jaylen Brown
,
who came up empty-handed in his debut in the contest.
“Shaq was great putting on that high school jersey, man, I was excited that he did that
,” said the winner of the test, who achieved the dunk on his first attempt and was rewarded by the demanding judges who until that moment came to him lowering the price to its aerial pirouettes.
IT CAN'T SERRRRRRR... MCCLUNG JUMPED SHAQUILLE O'NEAL ON ONE OF THE BIGGEST DUNKS EVER SEEN!!
Perfect 50 and TWICE CHAMPION of the Dunk Contest!
📺 All the #NBAAllStar for #ESPNenStarPlus pic.twitter.com/fqrJoOpHQQ
— SportsCenter (@SC_ESPN) February 18, 2024
McClung picked O'Neal out of the crowd and asked him to help him make the dunk of the night.
In reality, the NBA legend was the giant obstacle that the Osceola Magic player, the Orlando Magic branch in the G-League, had to overcome to celebrate again.
“It was like, okay, you have to bring something, and I think they want us to do it on the first try. So I knew it was time to secure the final
,” she summarized.
And McClung did it,
becoming the sixth player in All-Star Game history to win the contest twice
and the first to do so in consecutive seasons since
Zach LaVine
did it in 2015 and 2016.
Will he go for an unprecedented third consecutive title next year?
"Don't know.
We will think about it.
“I’m still not sure,” McClung said.
The only player with three wins in the dunk contest is Nate Robinson, but they were not consecutive.
Watch all 4 of Mac McClung's dunks, including his contest-winning perfect 5⃣0⃣
The back-to-back #ATTSlamDunk champion put on a SHOW 🤩 pic.twitter.com/YcTrNDMvwz
— NBA (@NBA) February 18, 2024
The winner needed a high score after Brown, the judges' favorite, had an average of 49.2 on his last dunk over another person with a white sequined glove - a tribute to Michael Jackson? - on his left hand.
McClung had jumped over two people, one piggybacking on the other, in his first dunk of the final round.
Brown, meanwhile, paid tribute to the late
Terrence Clark
, a Massachusetts High School star who died in a car accident at age 19 in April 2021.
Lillard, the king of triples
Before there was also a two-time champion.
Damian Lillard
, now
a star for the Milwaukee Bucks, defended his three-point contest title by finishing with 26 points in the final round on Saturday night.
Lillard, who had won as a man for the Portland Trail Blazers last season, became the eighth player to win at least two three-point crowns and the first to do so in two consecutive years since
Jason Kapono
did it in 2007 and 2008.
Watch all 3 rounds of Dame Lillard's #Starry3PT victory!
Dame takes home the trophy for the second-consecutive year🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/NljQ0LkjKl
— NBA (@NBA) February 18, 2024
Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks), Tyrese Haliburton (Indiana Pacers) and Karl Anthony-Towns (Minnesota Timberwolves) had finished tied with Lillard for the three spots in the final round.
However, the local credit was eliminated in the tiebreaker.
Already in the final, Young and Towns scored 24 points each, which gave Lillard the opportunity to win it with a string of shots that gave him the title.
The skills challenge was left at home
In the skills challenge, Haliburton hit the tiebreaker shot from midcourt with 20s5 left to give Team Pacers the crown over Team All-Stars.
The point guard teamed with Myles Turner and Bennedict Mathurin to win the first two competitions of the night (team relay and passing) at Lucas Oil Stadium, just steps from the arena where he usually plays.
INDY'S OWN.
Watch all 4 rounds from Team Pacers... including a bonus halfcourt tiebreak round, as they win #KiaSkills in their home city 🙌 pic.twitter.com/8ciPCSyRyG
— NBA (@NBA) February 18, 2024
The All-Stars Team, meanwhile, had won the shooting contest after a score tied at 200, forcing a tiebreaker.
However, it took him 58.8 seconds to make his first shot from half court, while Haliburton needed just 38.3 seconds to seal the victory, which continued Indiana's dominance into All-Star weekend.
Mathurin had been selected as the Most Valuable Player of the Rising Star Game, played on Friday, after leading the Jalen Team to overcome the Detlef Team, which faced two former legendary Pacers players now as coaches: Jalen
Rose
and
Detlef Schrempf
.
Curry was left with the new "Battle of the Sexes"
There was another three-point contest, which marked a milestone. Stephen Curry lit up and with a string of hits defeated Sabrina Ionescu by three points.
Stephen vs.
Sabrina lived up to the hype!
Watch two of the best shooters in the world go at it, with Stephen Curry taking home the belt 🔥🎯 pic.twitter.com/8qp76GZp9b
— NBA (@NBA) February 18, 2024
It was 29-26 for the Golden State star and top three-point scorer in NBA history.
It was the first time a man faced off against a woman in the festivities before Sunday's main game.
Ionescu, a New York Liberty player, became a legend in the 2023 WNBA All Star three-point tournament. In that contest she missed the first shot, but then converted 20 in a row and with a total of 25 hits out of 27 attempts she rounded the best performance in the history of basketball regardless of gender.