The finals were about to begin. The two had tied in the preliminaries, so the order would remain the same.
LaVine would dunk first, with Tang Tian going later.
LaVine still looked incredibly relaxed.
Although Tang Tian's performance tonight had far exceeded his expectations, he remained confident.
In the realm of dunking, he stood at the very top of the pyramid.
The anticipation in the eyes of the on-site fans was also sky-high.
The preliminary-round dunks had whetted their appetites, and the finals would only be even more spectacular.
"I'm wondering if they're going to start dunking from outside the three-point line."
Barkley was also whipping up the television audience's excitement from the Commentary Booth.
The fans calling in were equally animated, picking up the topic and discussing it.
Kuroko's Basketball, the Japanese manga, was mentioned repeatedly. Kagami Taiga's "Walking in the air" involved taking off from the three-point line to dunk.
But the discussion quickly stopped, because LaVine was about to begin.
For his first dunk of the finals, he changed his starting position again. He was neither coming from the side nor the front, instead choosing behind the basket.
And it involved tossing the ball.
In the Slam Dunk Contest, tosses were a whole level harder because they depended on both the force of the toss and the height of the rebound.
The ball was tossed out and landed a step beyond the baseline.
As the ball bounced up, LaVine took off.
The toss had been slightly low, but after catching the ball, LaVine soared up to the backboard and completely covered up that minor flaw.
He stuffed the ball between his legs as he spun around.
Bang!
A toss from behind the backboard, followed by a 360 Dunk Between-the-Legs Crossover!
A dunk with a maxed-out difficulty rating!