The 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend and All-Star Game are back in Indianapolis for the first time since 1985, a nod to the state’s basketball history and 89-year-old Pacers owner Herb Simon.
Here’s what to know about tonight’s NBA dunk contest, 3-point contest, skills challenge and the Stephen Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu contest.
USA TODAY Sports will have the latest updates, highlights, analysis, reaction and more. Follow along.
Is there a such thing as home-court advantage? It appears so. For the third consecutive time, the home team has won the NBA All-Star skills challenge. Team Pacers, composed of Tyrese Haliburton, Benedict Mathurin and Myles Turner, took home the trophy in front of the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Saturday evening.
Team Pacers got on the board first with 100 challenge points for winning the first round, which consisted of a 35’ outlet pass, pylon dribbles, a short shot in the lane, corner three over an automated windmill defender, and a made basket on the opposite end. Tyrese Haliburton capped his team’s impressive run with an off-the-backboard dunk.
The second round consisted of a passing challenge, where each team had 30-seconds to collect as many points as possible by scoring in moving targets. Team All-Stars and Team Pacers tied with 74-points, resulting in a tiebreaker, which Team Pacers ultimately won by scoring 92 to the All-Stars’ 90 points. With the second-round win, Team Pacers took a 200 point lead over Team First Picks and Team All-Stars, who both had zero points.
Team All-Star evened things up with Team Pacers by winning the shooting challenge, where each team had 60-seconds to make as many shots from certain locations on the floor, including a five-point shot from half-court and a four-pointer beyond the arc.
Team All-Star and Team Pacers both had 200 points, while Team First Pick had zero.
The skills challenge went to a sudden death, half-court shootout. It took Team All-Stars 58.8 seconds to hit a half-court shot. Team Pacers, however, were able to knock the shot down in only 30.3 seconds. — Cydney Henderson
When is the NBA 3-point contest?
The 3-point contest is Saturday at the Indianapolis Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis. The event will take place after the skills challenge and before the Steph Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu 3-point shootout and the dunk contest.
The dunk contest is the last event on Saturday night.
TNT, ESPN, ESPN 2 and NBA TV and the NBA will provide coverage of the weekend’s events and news conferences.
Here’s the schedule for the rest of the weekend:
Saturday, Feb. 17
- All-Star Saturday Night Skills Challenge, 3-point Contest, Steph vs. Sabrina 3-point Challenge, Slam Dunk Content, 8 p.m. ET, TNT
Sunday, Feb. 18
- G League Up Next Game, 1:30 p.m. ET, NBA TV
- NBA All-Star Game, 8 p.m. ET, TNT
A few items of note from Adam’s Silver’s NBA All-Star Weekend press conference:
∎ Silver acknowledged he is focused on improving player-referee relations.
“I’m so sympathetic to both players who feel that an official missed a call, and sometimes they do, and I’m incredibly sympathetic to officials who have some of the hardest jobs in sports and are under a microscope and occasionally, of course, do miss calls, and we acknowledge when they do,” Silver said. “What makes me most frustrated are the communication issues sort of between players and officials. I feel that’s an area we should be able to do a better job, both ways. … It’s an area where we can make progress.”
∎ With NIL deals changing the college sports landscape, Silver said he will re-evaluate the G League Ignite, which the NBA has used to develop teens who did not want to play in college and sought a payday but were draft-age eligible.
“We are in the process of reassessing Team Ignite because now some of those same players who didn’t want to be one-and-done players because they felt it was unfair and they wanted the ability not just to earn a living playing basketball but to do commercial deals that weren’t available to them at college, to hire professional agents, an opportunity that wasn’t available to them at college, they now – all of those same opportunities have become available to them,” Silver said.
“I’m not sure what the future of Team Ignite will be, because before there was a hole in the marketplace that we thought we were filling before doing that, and now my focus is turning to earlier development of those players.”
∎ Silver praised former Dallas Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban who sold his majority share to the families of Dr. Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont.
“He’s truly been a game-changing owner in this league, and he’s had great success, obviously, with a championship but also competitive teams most of the time during his tenure. And he’s been a very active participant in league matters, whether it’s been our media committee or Board of Governors meetings. He’s never hesitated to speak his mind.
“I’m pleased that he’s still – he’s not the controlling governor of the team anymore – a very significant investor in the Dallas Mavericks as he’s made clear he’s not going anywhere. If you just tune into a game, he still seems to be standing in the same spot he was when he was the governor, and he continues to text, email, call us at the league office when he has something he wants to share with us.” — Jeff Zillgitt
Victor Wembanyama — the San Antonio Spurs rookie and No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft — is not a Western Conference All-Star.
However, Wembanyama did take part in the rising stars competition on Friday night.
Wembanyama finished the second semifinal game with a team-high 11 points, seven rebounds and two blocks, though his team was defeated and did not reach the final. — Jim Reineking
This year’s NBA All-Star Weekend marks the debut of the LED court.
The court, developed by the German company ASB GlassFloor, included design and color changes, location-based player tracking animations, and countdowns for extra point periods.
It’s the first time a fully LED court’s been used for an NBA event. — Ayrton Ostly
These four players are taking part:
- Mac McClung, G League’s Osceola Magic (2023 dunk contest winner)
- Jacob Toppin, New York Knicks, G League’s Westchester Knicks
- Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
- Jaime Jaquez Jr., Miami Heat
Read Jeff Zillgitt’s full feature on McClung here.
These are players are taking part:
- Damian Lillard, Milwaukee Bucks (2023 3-point contest winner)
- Malik Beasley, Milwaukee Bucks
- Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers
- Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
- Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota Timberwolves
- Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks
- Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
- Lauri Markkanen, Utah Jazz
Here are the winners for the last 10 years. Find the complete list here.
- 2023: Damian Lillard (Trail Blazers)
- 2022: Karl-Anthony Towns (Timberwolves)
- 2021: Steph Curry (Warriors)
- 2020: Buddy Hield (Kings)
- 2019: Joe Harris (Nets)
- 2018: Devin Booker (Suns)
- 2017: Eric Gordon (Rockets)
- 2016: Klay Thompson (Warriors)
- 2015: Stephen Curry (Warriors)
- 2014: Marco Belinelli (Spurs)
The Boston Celtics’ Larry Bird and Chicago Bulls’ Craig Hodges have each won the event three times. — Jeff Zillgitt
Golden State’s Steph Curry and Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton share the record with 31 points out of a possible 40. — Jeff Zillgitt
Here are the winners for the last 10 years. Find the complete list here.
- 2023: Mac McClung (76ers)
- 2022: Obi Toppin (Knicks)
- 2021: Anfernee Simons (Trail Blazers)
- 2020: Derrick Jones Jr. (Heat)
- 2019: Hamidou Diallo (Thunder)
- 2018: Donovan Mitchell (Jazz)
- 2017: Glenn Robinson III (Pacers)
- 2016: Zach LaVine (Timberwolves)
- 2015: Zach LaVine (Timberwolves)
- 2014: John Wall (Wizards)
Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry and New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu will compete head-to-head in the first NBA vs. WNBA 3-point challenge. This event will take place after the traditional 3-point contest and before the slam dunk contest.
Curry will shoot from the NBA 3-point line and use NBA basketballs, and Ionescu has the option to shoot from the WNBA 3-point line but she said she plans to shoot from the NBA line. She will use WNBA basketballs. Each made shot will result in a donation from State Farm to the NBA Foundation to support economic empowerment in the Black community.
Read Jeff Zillgitt’s story on how this contest came together.
The format for the Sabrina vs. Steph 3-point contest is the same as a traditional NBA and WNBA 3-point contest:
∎ 70 seconds to shoot as many of the 27 basketballs as he/she can.
∎ Four ball racks with four game balls and one “money” ball.
∎ Fifth rack will be a special “all money ball” rack. He/she can decide the spot for this rack.
∎ Two deep range shots.
∎ Game balls worth 1 point, money balls worth 2 points and deep range balls worth 3 points.
Sabrina Ionescu told reporters this week that she plans to shoot from the NBA 3-point line.
“I shoot from that range to begin with,” she said. “I practice from that range and wanting to just be a better shooter, a better basketball player and get better as a whole. And so knowing that I had the opportunity to pick what line I wanted to shoot from, it was a no-brainer from when it was first presented that I wanted to shoot from the NBA line and continue to just prove that we’re capable and we’re willing.
“It’s not something that it took a lot of convincing and knowing that I wanted to continue to just equal the playing field and do so when it matters and on the biggest stage.”
She can change her mind and shoot from the WNBA 3-point line though it seems unlikely. — Jeff Zillgitt
Here are the judges for Saturday’s slam dunk contest: Two-time dunk contest winner Dominique Wilkins, 2004 dunk contest winner Fred Jones, Hall of Famers Gary Payton and Mitch Richmond, and Darnell Hillman.
Here is how the prize money is distributed:
- First place: $105,000
- Second place: $55,000
- Third place: $20,000
- Fourth place: $20,000
Here is how the prize money is distributed:
- First place: $60,000
- Second place: $40,000
- Third place: $25,000
- Fourth place: $15,000
- Fifth place: $15,000
- Sixth place: $15,000
- Seventh place: $15,000
- Eighth place: $10,000
The highest number of tickets at BetMGM are on Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (+525) to win the dunk contest. Mac McClung (-225) is the favorite. — Richard Morin
The field is wide open for the 3-point contest, according to BetMGM. The most money is on Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton (+500), who owns 26.7% of the handle. — Richard Morin
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Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
