INDIANAPOLIS — The judges handed out just one 50-point dunk all evening and it determined every thing.
Mac McClung threw down a reverse dunk over Shaquille O’Neal to shut out the evening and that earned him a 50 — and made him the repeat NBA Dunk Contest champion.
“Shaq is so cool to placed on my highschool jersey” Makes me emotional that he did that,” mentioned McClung, who performs for the Osceola Magic (Orlando‘s G-League affiliate). “When he put it on, he mentioned, You higher not miss a dunk. And I used to be like, All proper, I will not miss it.”
On an evening with powerful judging, McClung simply edged out Jaylen Brown, who had boos rain down on him from the Indiana crowd at one level when, as he completed a dunk, the LED courtroom getting used appeared just like the Celtics‘ parquet. Neither the boos or coming in second bothered Brown.
“I wished to be artistic and produce some extra leisure to indicate on the finish of the day. I assumed it was cool,” Brown mentioned. “I assumed the setting was nice. I assumed the courtroom was nice, the LED lights. I simply wished to be as artistic as doable.”
There have been loads of high quality dunks on the evening. The Warmth’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. is not referred to as a excessive flyer however for his first dunk he additionally went over Shaq.
The theme of the evening appeared to be dunking over another person, which included Jacob Toppin over his brother (and former Slam Dunk champion himself) Obi Toppin with the reverse.
Nevertheless, McClung was persistently probably the most artistic.
“Simply loads of pondering,” he mentioned of his course of to give you these dunks. “I do not suppose I’ve labored so diligently on one thing so far-off for a very long time. I can not deceive you and be like, oh, man, I simply got here up — it took a very long time.”
It paid off. McClung has two Slam Dunk Contest trophies to his identify now.
