Eastern Conference reigns in NBA All-Star 2024: Curry against Inonescu, Mc Clung pounds way to Slam Dunk Trophy
NBA All-Star 2024 ended with a bang as the battle between the Eastern and Western Conference took place in Indianapolis from February 16 to 18.
The three-day event that was filled with skills, challenges, and their popular dunk-contest reverts to the traditional scoring system with four 12-minute quarters.
The East Conference defeated the West Conference with a 211-186 in the NBA All-Star Game, the east’s score is the highest score in the history of the All-Star Game and they are the first team to surpass the 200-point mark.
Damian Lillard from Milwaukee Bucks was awarded the Kobe Bryant MVP Award for his outstanding performance by leading his team, scoring 39 points including two halfcourt shots.
Despite being on the losing team, Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves was the game’s top scorer with 50 points while coming off from the bench.
Conversely, the West captain, LeBron James, had 8 points in 14 minutes and executed a slam dunk assisted by Luca Doncic in the first quarter, but fell short due to his ankle injury.
On the other hand, the highlight for this year’s 3-point challenge is Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu who lived up to the hype as they did the first-ever NBA versus WNBA 3-point Challenge.
Ionescu showed calmness as she entered the venue by engaging in conversations with people, while Curry, on the other hand, did not hide his feeling of nervousness because, according to him, “The whole world is going to be watching.”
The challenge started as they agreed in a head-to-head match wherein Ionescu didn’t choose to shoot from the women’s 3-point line of 20 feet, 6 inches. Instead, she threw her shot from the men’s 3-point line of 23 feet, 9 inches.
Ionescu gained momentum early as she started firing the balls from the five racks of five balls positioned at different points around the 3-point line.
She ended up with 26 points after making every shot from the first rack, tying with the highest score of the night by Lillard until Curry took over and showcased his amazing strategy where he gained 29 points, making him the 3-point champion for the NBA All-Star 2024.
As for the highly anticipated AT&T Slam Dunk contest, it was won consecutively by Mac McClung, representing the Osceola Magic.
He earned a perfect score on his final dunk, competing against Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown who put on an oversized white glove on his left hand, jumped over Donovan Mitchell, and dunk with his left in the championship round.
McClung’s winning dunk involved vaulting over Shaquille O’Neal, who served as his prop for his two-handed reverse dunk. This impressive feat drew perfect scores of 50 from all the judges.
“I’m trying to sit with it right now and take a second and understand what’s going on,” McClung said.
“I feel like life is so fast sometimes, it’s just I’ll look back in 20 years when I can’t jump anymore and not as quickly. But I know I’m a lucky dude,” he added.
McClung won 105,000 US Dollars, which is almost more than the amount that he will make in the G-League this season.
Meanwhile, LeBron James wishes to end his career with the Lakers.
According to James, he is happy being a Laker for the past six years and hopes to stay that way.
However, he is still unsure of how his career will end, or how long it will be or what uniform he will be wearing, but he hopes that it will be with the Lakers, he is unsure about it but certain that it is coming.
“I have not mapped out how many seasons I have left, [I] know it’s not that many” he added.