NBA All-Star Saturday kicked off with the Sears Shooting Contest, headlined by the father-son duo of Dell and Stephen Curry. Unfortunately, the half-court portion of the contest wasn’t a strong point.
The heavy favorites (the third member of the squad was WNBA player Becky Hammon) led the night off and took a full 1:05 to complete the four-shot course, missing their first 15 attempts from beyond the timeline.
The format of this year’s contest was two Western Conference squads and two teams from the Eastern Conference. Immediately after Team Curry struggled so mightily from beyond half-court, Team Durant (Kevin Durant, Karl Malone, and Skylar Diggins) had the same issues, before Durant sunk the clincher at the 1:00 mark, eliminating the favorites and advancing to the finals.
Team Hardaway (Tim Hardaway, Jr., Tim Hardaway, Sr., and Elena Delle Donne) led it off for the Eastern Conference, and managed to hit their first three shots without a miss. That was followed by 24 consecutive misses from half-court, before Tim Hardaway, Jr. hit the final shot after 1:25 had ticked off the clock.
Team Bosh, however, had the first two impressive of the contest, finishing the course in 35.6 seconds. Dominique Wilkins missed two bank shots from the low block, while WNBA player Swin Cash had a miss from the top of the circle before converting her second attempt. Chris Bosh missed a couple three-pointers from the left wing before advancing his team, but then nailed a half-court attempt in short order, sending his squad to the final against Team Durant, knocking out both hyped-up father-son duos immediately.
Team Durant struggled a bit from half-court in the finals, however, leaving the door open for Bosh’s crew. The Miami Heat star again hit his second attempt from past the timeline after missing three attempts from the left wing, capping off the finals with a time of 31.4 seconds after Durant’s group had completed the course in 43.6 seconds. And believe it or not, Team Bosh is now the back-to-back champion of the Sears Shooting Stars event, and winning the first contest of the evening for the Eastern Conference.
Chris Bosh’s half-court prowess was a bit surprising, showing that this contest is more about 40+ foot shooting accuracy/luck than anything else.
