Tyrese Maxey sinks halfcourt shot, but his team loses Skills Challenge at All-Star Saturday Night

INDIANAPOLIS — Tyrese Maxey made the halfcourt shot for Team All-Stars during the Skills Challenge at All-Star Saturday night. But the other Tyrese — aka, Tyrese Haliburton — sank the deep shot quicker, lifting Team Pacers to victory over the 76ers’ guard and his squad.

“I had a blast,” Maxey said following the event. “I thought we were going to win. … Just couldn’t make a halfcourt shot. It happens like that.”

Instead of an individual competition like years past, this format featured three teams made up of three players. Maxey joined the Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young and the Toronto Raptors’ Scottie Barnes on Team All-Stars. Bennedict Mathurin and Myles Turner joined Haliburton on Team Pacers. And the San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, the Orlando Magic’s Paolo Banchero, and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards made up Team Top Picks.

They competed in three rounds, starting with a relay that combined shooting, passing and dribbling drills. That came with a couple “mishaps,” Maxey lamented, when he was penalized for not moving correctly around the dribbling cones, and Barnes dribbled the ball off his foot during the same stretch. It was a hilarious callback to the Rising Stars Challenge two years ago, when both players struggled as teammates while trying to recreate historic shots to celebrate the NBA’s 75th anniversary.

Maxey’s Team All-Stars performed much better during the passing round, then won the shooting zone round to tie the “challenge score” at 200 to force the halfcourt tiebreaker. It took Maxey 58.8 seconds to bury the deep shot for his team, while Haliburton’s swished through the net in less than 40 seconds. As Haliburton held his victorious follow through, Maxey put his hand on his head.

“Well, honestly, I think that the home team rigged us,” Maxey joked. “I think we won the passing [round]. They told me that the lines were going to be on the court when we did the little course, and that didn’t happen. We tried our hardest.”

Up next during a busy weekend Maxey: His first appearance in the All-Star Game Sunday night.

Mac McClung, the former Delaware Blue Coat who last year took the Slam Dunk contest by storm, repeated as the event’s champion by topping the Boston Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown. McClung became the fifth player to win consecutive dunk contests, joining Zach LaVine, Nate Robinson, Jason Richardson, and Michael Jordan.

“I’m trying to sit with it right now,” McClung said, “and just take a second and really understand what’s going on. Because I feel like life is so fast sometimes. I’ll look back in maybe 20 years, when I can’t jump anymore and not as quick. I know I’m a lucky dude. That’s about it right now.”

McClung, who now plays for the Orlando G League affiliate Osceola Magic, earned a perfect 50 score on his last dunk, when he flew over the 7-foot-1 Shaquille O’Neal (who threw on McClung’s high school jersey), grabbed the ball, and threw down the reverse slam.

“That was actually the backup option,” McClung said. “I think the other one was a little better, maybe, but I won’t even tell that one. ... Shaq was so cool to put on my high school jersey on. That almost makes me emotional that he would do that. But when he put it on, he said, ‘You better not miss the dunk.’ ”

McClung scored a 48.8 on his first dunk of the finals, when he threw the ball over one man sitting on another’s shoulders. His first of four total dunks on the night was also impressive, when he purposefully dropped and grabbed the ball out of midair and then executed the reverse slam.

The Miami Heat’s Jaime Jaquez and the G League’s Jacob Toppin (the brother of 2022 champion Obi Toppin) were the other competitors.

When asked on the court following the win if he would go for a three-peat next year McClung said, “I’d have to think about it. Never say never.”