jeudi 5 février 2015

Splash Brothers, Korver, Harden, Kyrie to headline Three-Point Shootout




The NBA announced the full list of competitors for the 2015 Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout on Thursday night, and with all due respect to the Sprite Slam Dunk, it sure looks like this might be the highlight of All-Star Saturday Night. This field is stacked:


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The five participants named in Yahoo Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski's Jan. 27 report — Golden State Warriors All-Stars Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, Kyle Korver of the Atlanta Hawks, Wesley Matthews of the Portland Trail Blazers and J.J. Redick of the Los Angeles Clippers — will be joined by the event's last two champions, 2013 winner Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers and 2014 victor Marco Belinelli of the San Antonio Spurs. James Harden of the Houston Rockets, the NBA's leading scorer, rounds out the star-studded eight-man field.


Matthews, Korver, Curry, Thompson, Harden, Redick and Irving all rank in the top 12 in the NBA in made 3-pointers thus far this season. Matthews leads the league in long balls made (151) and attempted (376) heading into Thursday's action, while Korver leads the league in accuracy, connecting on a blistering (and yet somehow not career-high) 53.2 percent of his bombs for the East-leading Hawks.


Three players in the field have made at least 10 3-pointers in a game this season, with Thompson canning 11 during his 52-point, 37-in-the-third-quarter-alone explosion on Jan. 23, Irving drilling 11 en route to an NBA-season-high 54 points on Jan. 28, and Curry making 10 of 16 tries while hanging 51 on the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. Harden's shooting 38.7 percent, just off his career-high of 39 percent, on a career-high 6.9 attempts per game in Houston, while Redick's 43.2 percent mark is on pace to be the best of his nine-year pro career. Belinelli's been limited to just 30 games by injuries, but he's hitting 38.2 percent of his triples after ranking fifth in the league with a 43 percent mark last season.


Irving and Belinelli will each be looking to become the contest's eighth multi-time winner, joining sharpshooting luminaries Larry Bird, Craig Hodges, Mark Price, Jeff Hornacek, Peja Stojakovic, Jason Kapono and James Jones. Curry and Korver, meanwhile, will be looking to get on the board after failing to hoist the trophy in their prior attempts; Korver's come up empty twice, and Curry's 0-for-3 in the event, which he intends to rectify, no matter the cost:



Well, sure. Shooters keep shooting, after all.


Here's the order in which the competitors will step to their racks:



... and here are the rules, which are a bit different from last year's rules, for all you completists out there:


In the two-round competition, five shooting locations are positioned around the three-point arc. Four of the racks contain four orange balls (each worth one point) and one multi-colored “money” ball (worth two points). The fifth rack will be a special “all money ball” rack, which each participant can place at any of the five shooting locations. Every ball on this rack will be worth two points. The players have one minute to shoot as many as the 25 balls as they can. The three competitors with the highest scores in the first round advance to the championship round.

In other All-Star Saturday news, the league has changed up the format of the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, otherwise known as "the sort of obstacle course kind of thing." This year's model will be a little bit different from last year's; instead of each conference fielding two two-player teams to run the event as a sort of relay race, with the fastest team being crowned champions, there will be a bracket-style head-to-head tournament setting this year. Here's how it'll break down:



On one side of the bracket, Isaiah Thomas of the Phoenix Suns will take on All-Star John Wall of the Washington Wizards in the opening round, while All-Star Jeff Teague of the Hawks faces Michael Carter-Williams of the Philadelphia 76ers. On the other, defending champion Trey Burke of the Utah Jazz will take on Brandon Knight of the Milwaukee Bucks, while All-Star Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls squares off against All-Star Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors. You win, you advance, until the championship round. Another wrinkle this year: instead of finishing the course with a dunk or a layup, you've got to hit a 3-pointer.


And in the biggest news of the night, Team Bosh — Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins and Swin Cash of the WNBA's New York Liberty — will seek their third straight Degree Shooting Stars title.



Looking to take them down in the shooting competition — in which two three-person teams representing each conference, consisting of one NBA player, one WNBA player and one former NBA player, shoot from four locations of increasing difficulty (a 10-footer from the right side, a 20-footer from the top of the key, a 3-pointer from the left wing and a half-court shot) in numeric order as fast as they can — will be:


• Team Curry, which for the second straight year will consist of Stephen Curry and his dad Dell Curry, joined this time by eight-time WNBA All-Star Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm;


• Team Davis, led by Western Conference All-Star starter Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans, who will be joined by Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen and two-time WNBA All-Star Elena Delle Donne of the Chicago Sky;


• Team Westbrook, led by All-Star Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, who will be joined by legend Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway and nine-time WNBA All-Star Tamika Catchings of the Indiana Fever.


We wait with bated breath to find out whether All-Star Saturday's greatest dynasty will continue apace, or be toppled and resigned to the dustbin of history.


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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!



Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.






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