CNN
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It was another action packed Saturday night of the NBA All-Star weekend with history being made, a slam dunk masterclass, and a controversial disqualification all taking place in San Francisco.
Osceola Magic guard Mac McClung made All-Star history by becoming the first person to win the Slam Dunk contest three years in a row.
Not only did McClung secure the win but he won the contest with a perfect score, receiving maximum 50 points in each round on a night of flawless dunking.
The 26-year-old set the tone for the event with his very first dunk – and in spectacular fashion.
A car drove onto the court and reversed towards the basket, giving some indication of what was about to unfold. McClung then proceeded to jump over both a volunteer and the car, picking the ball out the volunteer’s hands, before still managing to emphatically reverse dunk the ball.
The difficulty factor didn’t lessen throughout the rest of McClung’s attempts and the guard wowed the judges and fans on his third attempt where he managed to dunk two balls at once.
“I feel like an imposter,” McClung told CNN Sport’s Andy Scholes after his win. “This doesn’t happen without all the help of my friends, people were letting me use their cars to try to jump over them.”
McClung explained that his love for dunking is what fuels his creativity and success in the contest.
“I think when you love something and that’s your action, then you can kind of be better at it than you usually would.”
While McClung’s perfect score across all four rounds proved to be unassailable, San Antonio Spurs rookie Stephon Castle kept the pressure on with a display of high-class dunking.
Castle finished in second and only 0.4 points behind McClung with his score of 99.6 across the final two rounds. Milwaukee Bucks guard Andre Jackson Jr. finished in third with Chicago Bulls rookie Matas Buzelis ending up in fourth place.
While All-Star weekend is full of thrills, it rarely contains any controversy. That was until Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul were disqualified from the skills challenge.
In an attempt to set the fastest time in the event, the San Antonio Spurs duo thought they had come up with a masterplan.
Rather than shoot the ball at the allotted stations, Wembanyama and Paul quickly threw the balls away as fast as they could to minimize their time spent shooting.
While the tactic seemed to be working, the pair were eventually disqualified for not taking valid shots.
“We tried a strategy that we thought could win,” Paul told reporters after the disqualification. The veteran guard added that the officials didn’t say anything when Wembanyama asked them about the tactic prior to the event.
Elsewhere, Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro won the three-point contest with a score of 24 in the final round.
Herro defeated the Golden State Warriors’ Buddy Hield and Cleveland Cavaliers star Darius Garland in the final round of the event.
Damian Lillard failed in his attempt to win the contest three years in a row and was eliminated after round one with a score of 18 points.
