NEW ORLEANS—They weren’t pull-up three-pointers in transition, so Kyle Lowry was behind from the beginning.
Lowry, who admittedly didn’t spend a whole lot of time preparing, bowed out of the three-point shooting contest at the NBA’s all-star Saturday night event, scoring just nine points in a competition won by Eric Gordon of the Houston Rockets in an extra-round shootout over Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving.
“It was fun to be out there,” the Toronto Raptors guard said after he failed to advance past the first round for the second straight year. “I didn’t put no work into it but I should have. Next time I’ll know.
“Maybe if they give me a screen I can do it, if I can dribble next time, maybe we can do it that way. Pull-up threes, I’d be real good with that.”
Saturday’s outcome notwithstanding, Lowry is on pace to have the best three-point shooting season of his 11-year career.
“For sure I’d do it again,” Lowry said. “If I keep shooting the ball the way I have in the regular season, I think I can win it one day.
“It’s a lot different, your rhythm’s different, it didn’t go as I planned but I had fun, I enjoyed it. Next time I’ll practise.”
Lowry is shooting 41.7 per cent from beyond the arc in the regular season —he’s never shot better than 38.8 per cent for a year — and is closing in on a personal mark of 212 threes made in a season.
It’s an evolution of his game that came late.
“Maybe my sixth year, six or seven?” he said early Saturday afternoon. “I don’t know, it’s just something that I’ve always worked on and I’ve always continued to try to get better at. For me, it’s just kind of the hard work I put in pays off.”
Gordon beat Irving 21-18 in the playoff after the pair had both finished with 20 points in what was supposed to be a final round with Charlotte’s Kemba Walker. Defending champion Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors and Portland’s C.J. McCollum were eliminated along with Lowry after the first round.
In a dunk contest that had none of the drama of last year’s Toronto showdown between Minnesota’s Zach LaVine and Orlando’s Aaron Gordon, Glenn Robinson III of the Indiana Pacers beat Derrick Jones Jr. of the Phoenix Suns in the final.
Gordon bowed out in the first round despite an opening dunk that involved a pass dropped from a drone near the basket. He failed on a handful of attempts at using that prop and was eventually eliminated along with DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Earlier, Kristaps Porzingis of the New York Knicks won the skills competition, the second year in a row a big man has won the race involving dribbling, passing and shooting layups and three-pointers.
“It’s a good feeling that I’m able to showcase my skill with my size and show to the kids that you’re capable of doing that even if you’re tall and lanky like me,” the 7-footer said. “I think a lot of kids now growing up will improve those perimeter skills just seeing guys like -- I don’t want to mention myself but big guys with perimeter skills that can do it.”
Porzingis beat Utah’s Gordon Hayward in the final.
Hayward advanced when Washington’s John Wall and Boston’s Isaiah Thomas couldn’t hit their three-pointers at the end of the course. Porzingis won a big man’s race with the Pelicans’ Anthony Davis and Denver’s Nikola Jokic.
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