It’s pretty rare when anything in sports goes exactly as expected. Despite one of the deepest fields the shootout has ever seen, the 3-Point Contest was supposed to be a battle between two Golden State Warriors.
Klay Thompson led everyone with a first round score of 24, which put him in the finals with Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving. Irving started things off with a 17, which clearly wasn’t going to get it done. Curry caught fire in the middle of his round and kept it going until the very end, putting up a ridiculous 27 points (out of 34 possible). Thompson lost his touch midway through, ending with 14 points.
It’s tough to think of much to say about a shooting exhibition, but there’s a few things I’ll remember from this particular contest.
1. The instrumental they decided to play for every single player after the “FIVE-FOUR-THREE-TWO-ONE” got stuck in my head after the second guy in the first round, and my wife came out to the living room and — within seconds — explained why after watching one guy shoot his first baseline rack.
It’s from some Coldplay song. I probably should’ve known, but know a lot more about sports than I do about pretentious piano ballads. Last night’s All-Star festivities ended with a live performance by aging country singer Jon Bon Jovi, showing once again that the NBA has a great handle on its audience.
2. James Harden looked like he was afraid to jump each time he shot.
3. J.J. Redick’s haircut was a lot more precise than his foot placement.
4. Curry had an Under Armour logo on his left bicep. (Check the photo above.)
5. A national audience got to see what every Warriors fan knows Curry can do, and that’s make 10+ threes in a row with ease.
The video above (which I filmed with my mouth open, wondering if I what I was watching was actually happening) shows Curry making 10 consecutive threes after practice like it was nothing. He drained 13 in a row on his way to his first 3-Point Contest victory, and the crazy thing — as he’s shown at the end of so many practices — was how easy he made it look.
