CLEVELAND — In another sign of how basketball has evolved, especially in the NBA, a 6-foot-11 grown man won the NBA's 3-point contest on Saturday.
With 3-pointers watching Reggie Miller, Ray Allen and Steph Curry, Karl-Anthony Towns of Minnesota won the competition by defeating Trey Young of Atlanta and Luke Kennard of the Los Angeles Clippers in the final.
Towns scored a record 29 points in the final round, including 18 from his first 22 shots, nine of his first 10, 4-of-5 on his money-ball rack (worth two points each instead of one) and a mount. were involved. Dew shot from deep range.
Towns said, "I said it on the Timberwolves Twitter, I said it everywhere - the only way to lose it is if someone overtakes me. I'm not going to beat myself up here." "I'm with the big guy with the best shoot ever."
🚨 Karl-Anthony Towns opens the final round of #MtnDew3PT with 29! 🚨
— NBA (@NBA) February 20, 2022
2 shooters left on TNT. #NBAAllStar #StateFarmSaturday pic.twitter.com/lyfAOUv6Es
Towns went up against the best 3-point shooters in the game, but this was an opportunity he has cherished.
"I'm asking the NBA to do it for me," Towns said as he walked into the interview room holding the trophy.
He said that he got up at eight o'clock on Saturday morning and started practicing.
"I didn't come here to compete. I came here to compete. I came here to win," he said. "On the other hand, it's just what I feel for myself in my life, my motto has always been if I can't do something at 110% and give me everything, I don't want to do it, and I knew That's when I got the call, and I'd been begging the NBA for years to do this competition, and I finally got the call to do it this year, so I wanted to make the most of it. If I went to the show up, I'm going to try to show that too."
Towns is a solid 3-point shooter, making 2.1 3s per game at 40.9% shooting this season.
Earlier in the day at the All-Star media availability, Townes addressed the larger issue of modern times in the NBA.
"The center role is dying out," Towns said. "There's that flex forward slash center that's more common now. That's on the rise. People thoughts of a center with their back to the basket, just rebounding, just a big heavy buy that doesn't free throws well, Doesn't shoot 3s fine and can't do anything but hook shots and dunks."
After his victory, he said, "I think for all the kids, the tall kids and all the big men out there who are told they can't do anything except keep their backs to the basket and hit the hook shot." , I want to be the example that this is not true. You can achieve whatever you want and be the player you want to be at any time."
Memphis's Desmond Bain, Chicago's Zach LaVine, Toronto's Fred VanValet and Brooklyn's Patty Mills all went out in the first round.
LaVine, McCollum and Young were the only players to have previously competed in a 3-point contest.