The NBA 3-point contest comes down to one last ball, and Damian Lillard has no room left for another miss. Four chances to finish have clanged off iron. Indianapolis waits as he reaches for the money ball in 2024. Up goes the shot. Through goes the winner. 26 points. The crowd roars, and Lillard points toward his wrist.
Nobody has chased him around a screen. No center has lunged at his release. Still, the noise makes perfect sense. Everyone recognizes the terror of needing a jumper with no second chance. Strip away the dribbling, the contact, and the help defense, and the shooter owns every inch of blame.
How can a stationary exhibition of undefended jumpers explain a league that spends every possession sprinting to create space? Start with the defender missing from that picture. Put him beside Lillard, and he has a decision to make before the ball leaves the rack. Back away, and the shooter gets comfortable. Crowd him, and something opens behind your heels.
The price of standing still
Teams averaged 2.8 three-point attempts per game when the NBA introduced the shot in 1979–80; by 2024–25, that average reached 37.6. Read those numbers again. An entire team once spent a night taking fewer threes than a hot shooter can launch during a brief stretch.
That explosion changes what defenders can afford to ignore. Watch the help man with one sneaker in the paint and his head swiveling toward the corner. His coach wants him to stop the drive. Behind him, the shooter wants that same commitment.
The NBA 3-point contest makes the second part impossible to miss. Each rack puts a familiar defensive concession under a spotlight: leave this player here, and watch what happens. The contest deserves more respect than its party-game billing. We spend months arguing over sophisticated offense, then shrug at the skill that makes much of it possible.
Ten moments behind the open floor
Three questions connect these moments: who makes the shot, where does he threaten, and which defender must answer? Follow the history forward, and the pressure spreads from star forwards to specialists, ballhandlers, and centers. Each adds a different headache.
10. Bird leaves the jacket on
Larry Bird keeps the green warmup top on. He reaches, releases, and starts celebrating before the last ball finishes its trip in 1988. His third straight title completes a sweep of the event’s first three editions, from 1986 through 1988.
That jacket remains a better advertisement for shooting than a thousand bloodless efficiency charts. Bird looks almost insultingly comfortable. Opponents know the danger of giving that sort of confidence a clean look.
His place in NBA 3-point contest history also complicates the lazy story that basketball discovered the jumper when somebody opened a spreadsheet. A star forward could already make the perimeter a place to run offense. Feed the post from outside, hold your position, and make your defender choose between crowding the big man and abandoning you. The pass creates a problem because the passer can shoot.
9. Hodges gives the specialist teeth
Craig Hodges opened a round in 1991 by making 19 consecutive shots. The next ball kept arriving, the net kept snapping, and waiting for the miss became the entertainment. His streak gave the specialist a starring role without asking him to become a different player.
Now picture spending six minutes in the cold corner while somebody else runs the offense. Your legs tighten. A pass finally cracks into your palms, and a defender comes charging at your face. Get your feet underneath you. Shoot before the closeout smothers the release. Hesitate, and the possession needs another rescue.
Calling that player “just a shooter” insults the hardest part of his job. He must deliver immediately after everybody else has enjoyed the rhythm of touching the ball. Hodges’ run makes the craft visible: balance ready, hands ready, no wasted negotiation with the shot.
8. Price punishes the shortcut
Mark Price won in 1993 and 1994, a point guard with a release defenders could not casually dismiss. Cleveland later put both trophies on a commemorative bobblehead. The souvenir gets something right: those jumpers belonged beside the ballhandling in any account of his game.
Listen for the screener’s shoes scraping into position. A defender ducks underneath to meet the guard on the other side, saving himself a collision. Give a dangerous shooter that shortcut, and you may surrender a jumper before the screener even turns around.
Chase over the top instead, and the ballhandler can attack with you trailing his hip. Bring a second defender toward the ball, and the screener can slip into daylight. Pick-and-roll coverage starts making concessions because the guard can punish the easiest route. Price’s trophies put a clean shooting motion beside a much messier job: controlling everybody else’s next step.
7. Stojakovic makes the pass matter
Peja Stojakovic won in 2002 and 2003, giving Sacramento’s passing era its own shooting hardware. His hands offered a target; his feet prepared the finish. Those details belong to the same action.
Let the ball do damage. That five-word instruction captures the appeal of the Kings’ offense beside possessions that stall under a guard’s pounding dribble. Chris Webber and Vlade Divac could handle the ball inside the arc while Stojakovic worked toward his catch. A passer at the elbow sees a different lane from a guard surveying everything above the key.
Watch the receiver’s shoulders turn toward the rim before the pass arrives. He has already started shortening the time a defender gets to recover. The NBA 3-point contest shows the release at the end of that chain. Sacramento gives it a fuller meaning: a jumper can reward the imagination of the man who throws the pass.
6. Nowitzki breaks the old assignment
Dirk Nowitzki hoisted the ball above that seven-foot frame and won the 2006 event with an 18-point final. He became the first seven-footer to take the trophy. Afterward, he called himself “a shooter first.”
Good for him. Basketball spent far too much energy telling tall players which parts of the floor they ought to inhabit. Nowitzki could put his own answer through the net.
A seven-footer with a jumper gives defensive coaches a miserable choice of bodies. Put a smaller player on him, and the release can clear the contesting hand. Send size, and that defender must bend, turn, and chase away from his usual neighborhood. The trouble begins with the matchup itself. Before anyone calls for help, the coach must decide whose physical disadvantage he can stomach.
5. Love keeps the muscle and adds range
Kevin Love beat Kevin Durant for the 2012 title, bringing rebounding hands to the shooting racks. During that season, he averaged 13.3 rebounds and made 105 threes. Read the combination through the bruises: elbows under the rim, contact across the shoulders, then a jumper waiting outside.
Love banged through bodies for his boards and could take his defender out toward 24 feet on the next possession. A teammate posting up gained room when that defender followed. Park another rebounder near the basket, and Love’s range helped the two share the floor without piling both matchups into the same patch of paint.
His NBA 3-point contest victory gave the strongman a shooting trophy, but the useful tension survived the ceremony. Every trip outside also increased his journey back toward an offensive rebound. Coaches still had to choose where they wanted his weight, his hands, and his next collision.
4. The money rack puts a price on preference
In 2014, the NBA 3-point contest added a rack of five two-point money balls that each shooter could place at his preferred station. The choice turned an overlooked detail into something spectators could see. Put your best rack here. Bet on this angle.
The corners sit 22 feet from the basket; above the break, the line reaches 23 feet, 9 inches. Shorter sounds easier until you look down and notice how little floor separates your shoes from the sideline. Some players like that view. Others want the rim straight ahead.
An offense must respect those differences. A corner three needs a passer who can reach the corner, and a receiver who stays available when the drive pulls his defender inward. The money rack supplies the preferred address. Teammates must still get the ball through traffic to the front door.
3. Curry pulls the defense apart
Stephen Curry scored 27 points in the 2015 final, then finished that regular season with 286 made threes. One number won him a shooting exhibition. The other announced how often opponents had to live with the threat.
Track Curry without watching the ball. His presence drags defenders toward trouble they cannot afford to ignore. That gravity feels like an eviction notice nailed to the paint. Big men step outward, helpers abandon comfortable positions, and teammates inherit room somebody else just surrendered.
Watch him give up the ball and cut. Follow the defender chasing his shoulder, then the teammate who screens that pursuit. A fast release makes a sliver of separation worth fighting for. The NBA 3-point contest gives everybody a clean look at the mechanism. In a game, Curry makes the whole defense scramble to keep that mechanism from firing.
2. Deep stations push the argument back
The 2020 format added green balls on pedestals six feet behind the three-point line, worth three contest points apiece. Players left the familiar racks, reached for a different ball, and had to send it farther. Television could show the extra distance without explaining a thing.
Game scoring offers no extra point for that ambition. A deep three still pays three, so the shooter must make the longer attempt dangerous enough to deserve attention. Otherwise, the defense gets exactly the possession it wants.
Move the defender out toward that shot, though, and a high screen can start farther from the basket. The guard gains room to accelerate. A screener turning toward the rim has more space in which to catch and make a decision. Deep range changes where the confrontation begins. The work afterward still demands a pass, a handle, or a finish.
1. Towns takes the rim protector with him
Karl-Anthony Towns scored 29 points in the 2022 final and became the first center to win. Knees bent, arms extended, another jumper dropping: the position’s old boundaries looked awfully flimsy around those racks.
Take that release into a possession. A guard attacks, Towns waits outside, and the opposing center has to account for both. Follow Towns, and a smaller teammate may inherit the duty of meeting the drive at the rim. Stay home, and the pass can find a center who shoots.
No basketball superstition deserves burial more than the idea that tall kids should need permission to develop touch. Towns’ trophy offers an excellent shovel. Shooting expands what a center can give his team, even as rebounding, rim protection, and defending in space continue to determine which combinations survive.
Make the next defender run
Watch the next NBA 3-point contest for the shot, then watch the next game for the chase. The future belongs to lineups that can shoot, pass, and attack the closeout before help resets. Push the center outside. Cut behind the scramble. Make the defense surrender space before anybody takes the jumper.
Read More: Why defending the corner three remains the ultimate test for drop-coverage
FAQs
How does the NBA 3-point contest relate to spacing?
The contest spotlights shots defenders fear conceding. During games, those threats pull opponents away from driving lanes and force difficult help decisions.
What does Stephen Curry’s gravity mean?
Defenders follow Curry even when he gives up the ball. That attention opens room for teammates to cut, screen and attack.
How many points did Towns score to win in 2022?
Karl-Anthony Towns scored 29 points in the final to win the 2022 contest.
What changed when the contest added a money-ball rack?
In 2014, players gained a full rack of five two-point balls. Each shooter could choose its location.
Why do shooting centers help an offense?
A center who shoots can pull an opposing big man away from the rim. That gives a driving teammate a different defender to attack.
