Shaedon Sharpe made an impressive dunk over Justin Champagnie in the Blazers' win over the Wizards.
Shaedon Sharpe threw down a vicious one-handed slam that was immediately hailed as one of the best dunks of the season, part of a career-best 36-point performance that carried the Portland Trail Blazers to a 129-121 win over the Washington Wizards.
| Player of the Game | |
|
EFF
32
|
| Shaedon Sharpe | |
| Points | 36 |
| Accuracy | 13-26 |
| Rebounds | 8 |
| Assists | 5 |
Sharpe shot 13/26 from the floor and converted all four of his free throws inside the final minute as the Trail Blazers maintained a lead of at least three throughout the fourth quarter.
Sharpe, 21, has been one of the NBA's most gifted young dunk artists since he was selected 7th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2022 NBA draft. But that dunk over the unfortunately placed Justin Champagnie has been the highlight of his career.
"I just started like laughing, like, 'Wow, man. Poor kid up under him,'" Portland coach Chauncey Billups said of the slam. "That was pretty incredible."
Sharpe's signature moment originated with an alert defensive play when he swiped Champagnie's pass beyond the 3-point arc. Sharpe then took one dribble into the paint and launched so high into the air that even his teammates were in disbelief.
"I don't know where he got it from," Blazers forward Deni Avdija said. "I asked him on the bench, 'If I'm going to work as hard as I can, will I be able to jump like you?' I don't know, it's just genes."
Such was the force of his slam that Sharpe crashed briefly to the court after flushing the ball through the net.
"I seen the dude in the way," Sharpe explained, "so I just jumped and tried to dunk it. And it went in."
In 33 minutes, Sharpe also had eight rebounds and five assists.
"His offense was incredible," Billups said. "I mean it really was. On all three levels, he was incredible the entire time. I thought the defense was high-level as well. I really did. And his rebounding, he got some really, really big rebounds for us."
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