The 2017 NBA Three-Point Contest came down to the wire between Eric Gordon and Kyrie Irving. Out of eight contestants, the two took it all the way to a sixty-second overtime shootout, with Gordon eventually topping Irving.
The first round saw last year’s champion, Klay Thompson, lose in the first round with a score of 18 points, tying him with Nick Young. Kemba Walker was one of the three finalists with a score of 19, while Irving scored 20 and Gordon led the round with 24
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Wesley Matthews scored just 11 points, CJ McCollum didn’t do much worse with 10 points, and Kyle Lowry came in last with 9 points.
Walker started off the finals by posting a score of 17. Irving was up next, posting another score of 20 after hitting 11 points in his last two racks. Last was Gordon, needing 21 points to take the crown. With one rack to go, Gordon was at 19 and had to hit two normal shots or one money-ball. Instead, Gordon hit one shot to send it to a tiebreak.
The tiebreak was a normal round– the players had sixty seconds to hit as many shots as they could in the slotted time. Uncle Drew came out hot, hitting four shots worth five points in the first rack, but struggled in the middle racks, scoring only four in the next two racks. On his money-ball rack, Irving hit four shots worth eight points, but then followed it up with just one point on the last rack. Irving ended the round with 18.
Gordon came up knowing he needed to score 19 in order to win this year’s contest. His first rack was solid, netting three points, and then he caught fire for the next two racks. He combined to score 14 points in the second and third racks, bringing him to a total of 17 with two racks to go. The Houston Rocket needed just one point in order to tie Irving, and two to win it. It took him some time, but he scored the two points needed on the fourth rack and then hit two more just for fun on the last rack bringing him to a total of 21.
With the thrilling victory in the 2017 NBA Three-Point Contest, Eric Gordon became the first Houston Rocket to win the dunk contest since it was created in 1986.
