All-Star Saturday turned into the Heat’s night. Inside big nights for Jones Jr. and Adebayo
Is All-Star Weekend turning into the Miami Heat’s weekend?
Not only does the Heat have six players representing the organization in Chicago, but two of the three All-Star Saturday Night events were won by Heat players at the United Center. Derrick Jones Jr. took home the Slam Dunk Contest crown on his 23rd birthday and Bam Adebayo won the Skills Challenge.
Second-year Heat forward Duncan Robinson had a chance to make it three-for-three, but he was eliminated in the first round of the Three-Point Contest. Still, it marked just the third time in Heat history that it has had multiple winners on All-Star Saturday Night (1995 Harold Miner in Slam Dunk Contest and Glen Rice in Three-Point Contest, 2007 Dwyane Wade in Skills Challenge and Jason Kapono in Three-Point Contest).
“We’ve been down a couple years,” Adebayo said of the Heat. “But that’s what I like about this organization. We never stop fighting no matter what our year is like. We always come in with positive intentions and trying to find a way to win. ... It just shows how much talent we have on this team.”
The Slam Dunk competition was the final event Saturday, but it was the highlight of the night. The contest turned into a memorable showdown between Magic forward Aaron Gordon and Jones that included a controversial finish.
In the two-round event, five judges scored every dunk on a scale of 6 to 10, resulting in a high score of 50 and a low score of 30. Wade was among the judges.
All four competitors get two dunks in the first round. The two players with the highest combined score for their two dunks advanced to the head-to-head final round. Both players also got two dunks in the championship round, with the player with the highest combined score for his two final dunks crowned the Slam Dunk champion.
Gordon earned a perfect score of 50 for each of his first five dunks, but still lost in a competition that needed a dunk-off between Gordon and Jones to decide the outcome.
Jones, who finished as the runner-up in the 2017 Slam Dunk Contest as a rookie with the Suns, received a score of 46 on his first dunk of the night. He missed the first attempt, but threw down the second as he jumped over the 6-9 Adebayo.
Jones’ second dunk of the first round was clean, as he received a perfect score of 50 with a between-the-legs, 360-degree dunk with his left hand. With a total first-round score of 96, Jones advanced to the championship round against Gordon.
Nicknamed “Airplane Mode” for his elite leaping ability, Jones earned another perfect score for his first dunk of the final round. For this attempt, he jumped over two men and grabbed the ball in mid-air before putting it between his legs in one motion and slamming it down.
Jones received another perfect score on his second dunk of the final round, as he jumped over a man before taking a pass off the backboard and putting the ball between his legs all in one motion and dunking it.
With Gordon on a streak of four consecutive perfect scores at that point in the contest, a dunk-off was needed to see which would blink first.
Both Jones and Gordon also received perfect scores on their first attempt in the overtime round. That prolonged the contest even further.
After Jones earned a score of 48 for his second dunk of the dunk-off (taking off from just past the free-throw line and windmilling it down), all Gordon needed to do was score a 49 or 50 to win the event.
That’s when Gordon called on 7-foot-5 Celtics center Tacko Fall to try to clinch the contest. But Gordon’s dunk over Fall wasn’t good enough, according to the judges, as he received a score of 47 and lost the event to Jones.
Some in the United Center were surprised Gordon didn’t receive a higher score. And Gordon admitted he was among those who didn’t understand the outcome.
“Jumping over somebody 7-5 and dunking is no easy feat,” Gordon said. “What did I get, like a 47? Come on, man. What are we doing?”
When asked about the sequence of events that decided the competition, Jones said: “When I got that 48, it was tough because that was a dunk that I was doing since high school, and I know that’s 50 worthy,” Jones said. “There’s no way I should have got a 48. He clipped Tacko’s head when he did that dunk, so I knew they couldn’t have gave him a 50 for that one. I would have respected it if they gave him another 48, so we can go again.”
But there was no third dunk-off round. Jones was the winner, although he said he could have kept going if the competition went even longer.
“I got a whole lot in my arsenal,” Jones said. “I knew every dunk that I was going to do even if it went to overtime. I planned this. I just turned 23. I got legs for days, bro.”
Jones is the second Heat player to ever win and the third Heat player to ever participate in the Slam Dunk Contest. He joined Harold Miner on the short list of Heat participants who have claimed the dunk crown, with Miner winning the event in 1993 and 1995.
“Just being able to get an achievement like this on a day like this, it’s special for me,” Jones said. “This is a day that I’m going to tell my kids, just make sure they know that this is a day for me.”
And if Jones is invited to next year’s Slam Dunk Contest, he said he’ll welcome the opportunity to defend his title.
“Whoever wants to step out there,” Jones said. “I’m not naming no names. I don’t want to call nobody out, but whoever wants to step out in front of me, I’m there. I’m not going to shy away from nobody.”
ADEBAYO WINS SKILLS CHALLENGE
The 22-year-old Adebayo defeated Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis in the championship round of the Skills Challenge.
“I just want to say something. I read a tweet that I was last to win in Vegas,” said Adebayo, who was given either the worst or second-worst odds to win the event by most Las Vegas sports books. “So whoever bet, I hope you got your money and I hope you go buy yourself a Ruth’s Chris [steak], Cheesecake Factory, something in that fashion.”
The Skills Challenge is a three-round, obstacle-course competition that tests players’ dribbling, passing, agility and three-point shooting. The field featured a mix of guards and frontcourt players, and the participants faced off in a head-to-head, bracket-style tournament format.
Matched up against Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie in the first round, Adebayo was nearly perfect. He got the chest pass through the hoop on his first attempt and then made his first three-point attempt to eliminate Dinwiddie.
In the second round, Adebayo faced Raptors forward Pascal Siakam. Adebayo made the first chest pass once again, but missed his first three-point attempt before sinking the second to eliminate Siakam and advance to the championship round.
In the final round, Adebayo again hit his first chest pass and then drilled his third three-point attempt to eliminate Sabonis and win the competition. Adebayo dedicated the Skills Challenge trophy to his mother, Marilyn Blount.
Adebayo, who is 1 of 11 on threes this season, went 3 of 6 on threes in Saturday’s competition. Is it proof coach Erik Spoelstra needs to work Adebayo into the Heat’s three-point offense?
“I’m just saying, I had to end this with threes, so I can take top-of-the-key threes maybe?” Adebayo joked. “I mean, I just won, you know what I’m saying. This [trophy] right here, I hope you see this. [Spoelstra] might put it in consideration.”
Adebayo became the second Heat player to ever win the Skills Challenge. Wade is the only other Heat player to ever take part in the event, participated in it three times (2006, 2007, 2008) and winning it in 2006 and 2007.
“Man, I’m just trying to be like him,” Adebayo said of Wade, “trying to live that legacy and just trying to do something special like he did for the Miami Heat and for the city of Miami.”
NOT ROBINSON’S NIGHT
The 25-year-old Robinson was eliminated in the first round of the Three-Point Contest, with the top three first-round scores advancing to the championship round.
Robinson, who ranks fourth in the NBA with 191 three-pointers this season, turned in a score of 19 in the first round. That was not good enough to advance, as he finished with the sixth-best first-round score among the eight participants.
“I felt pretty good going into it,” Robinson said. “I just didn’t make enough. I know I’m a better shooter than that. But it’s alright.”
Robinson said he was consistently putting up scores in the mid-20s during his practice rounds leading into to the event.
“That’s why I was kind of disappointed with 19, but you can’t expect to see that every time,” he said.
Phoenix’s Devin Booker, Sacramento’s Buddy Hield and Washington’s Davis Bertans were the three to advance to the championship round. With a score of 27 in the final round, Hield won the Three-Point Contest.
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 12:26 AM.
