Mike Conley Jr. wins HORSE Challenge; top shots from semifinals, final

Tom Gatto

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Mike Conley Jr. wins HORSE Challenge; top shots from semifinals, final image

Jazz guard Mike Conley Jr. rolled to victory in the NBA HORSE Challenge, an event created to give quarantined hoop fans a semblance of basketball while the league sits out the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Conley took down former NBA star Chauncey Billups in the semifinals and then Bulls guard Zach LaVine in the final, both of which aired Thursday on ESPN.

MORE: Meet Allie Quigley, who defeated Chris Paul

The competition had its share of shots from impossible angles, including one that gave Conley the title over LaVine.

Conley gave Billups a letter with a similar shot from the same location.

But the clincher in that matchup was a good old-fashioned free throw — granny style:

LaVine, on the other hand, relied on his athletic ability to win his semifinal against WNBA star Allie Quigley. The two-time Slam Dunk Contest champion barely avoided throwing it down on some high-flying layups. The second one in this stack clinched his victory.

LaVine wanted to avoid having to put up normal shots against Quigley,

You can understand why when you see Quigley making a backward shot after her defeat was sealed.

State Farm, which sponsored the event, will donate $200,000 to charities focused on coronavirus response efforts, per an ESPN release.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.