NBA 3-Point Contest 2014: Player-by-Player Grades, Reaction and Analysis

Marco Belinelli is your three-point-contest champion. 

The San Antonio Spurs sharpshooter took advantage of the new rules that allowed players a single rack of all money balls, hitting at least three of those shots in each round to advance to the final, where he beat Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal for the title.

Afterward, he gave his bold strategy for victory, courtesy of Sports Illustrated's Ben Golliver:

Here's a look at the complete results:

Player	Team	1st Round	Final	Final Tiebreaker	Grade
Marco Belinelli	San Antonio Spurs	19	19	24	A
Bradley Beal	Washington Wizards	20	19	18	A-
Damian Lillard	Portland Trail Blazers	18			B+
Kyrie Irving	Cleveland Cavaliers	17			B+
Kevin Love	Minnesota Timberwolves	16			B
Steph Curry	Golden State Warriors	16			B
Arron Afflalo	Orlando Magic	15			B-
Joe Johnson	Brooklyn Nets	11			C-

In a stacked Western Conference group that featured Stephen Curry—easily the most prolific three-point shooter in the league—the 2012 three-point-contest champion in Kevin Love and the most recent NBA Rookie of the Year, Damian Lillard, it was Belinelli who somewhat surprisingly advanced to the final. 

And he did so despite shooting two airballs in the first three racks. Here's a look at his first:

Credit: Bleacher Report

Your three-point champion, everyone. 

Nevertheless, as Grantland's Netw3rk pointed out—with a little help from Kanye West—Belinelli did much of his damage with his money-ball rack, which he put in the final corner:

Beal, meanwhile, logged the best first-round score of the night with 21 when he drained his final shot at the buzzer. 

Advancing to the final was nice and everything, but the real highlight was probably getting mauled by Nelly, who used to walk Beal to school, afterward:

Credit: Bleacher Report

But at the same time, that led to Yahoo Sports' Dan Devine making all of our heads explode with this somewhat amazing revelation: 

In the final, Belinelli repeated his first-round score with a very solid 19. Similarly to his opening-round performance, he started out extremely slow, hitting just four of his first 10 shots. But he heated up as he went along, knocking down five in the fourth rack and three money balls on the final rack for six points. 

Beal seemed to be dead-to-rights when he wasted his money-ball rack and started out slow during his final round, but with his back against the wall, he calmly buried all six shots on his final rack to force a tiebreaker. 

That thrilling finish forced Robert Griffin III to voice his excitement:

But Bello wouldn't be outdone. He came back with a dead-eye 24 points during the tiebreaker, while Beal was only able to notch 18.