Devin Booker wins 3-point contest in record fashion; Spencer Dinwiddie tops skills challenge

Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns won the 3-point contest with a record 28 points in the final round. He beat 2016 champion Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors and Tobias Harris of theLA Clippers.

"It feels really good," Booker said. "I wanted to go out there and make a name for myself."

He was sensational in the final round Saturday at Staples Center, when he missed only five of 25 shots.

Each player shot five five-ball racks with a one-minute time limit. The final ball of each rack was a "money ball'' worth two points, and one of the racks was all money balls. Booker made the money-ball shot on his first four racks, and then made four of the five balls on the money-ball rack.

Harris, Booker and Thompson advanced from the eight-man field to the finals. Harris scored 17 points before Booker scorched the nets for 28 points. Thompson followed and scored 25 points.

The previous record was 27 points, set by Stephen Curry in 2015 and matched by Thompson the following year.

Booker, the 21-year-old sharpshooter in his third season with Phoenix, is averaging 24.2 points this season as the NBA's 12th-leading scorer. Eleven months after the shooting guard dropped 70 points against Boston to become the youngest player in NBA history to score at least 60 in a game, Booker added another accolade to his promising career with the 3-point title.

Thompson beat the buzzer with his final shot of the first round to reach the finals with 19 points. Booker also scored 19, and Harris had 18.

Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Netskickedoff NBA All-Star Saturday earlier with a win in the skills challenge.

Dinwiddie, who played at Taft High in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, beat Lauri Markkanen of the Chicago Bulls in the final round.

The skills competition consisted of two players going head-to-head. They dribbled around pylons, passed the ball into a net, dribbled to the other end of the floor for a layup and then dribbled back to the other end to take a pull-up 3-pointer.

Eight players started the competition, and Dinwiddie and Markkanen advanced to the final.

Markkanen struggled passing the ball into the net, giving Dinwiddie a big lead. Dinwiddie dribbled down the floor and missed his first 3 but drained the next one to win.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.