The Steph versus Sabrina 3-point challenge highlights an otherwise stale All-Star Saturday Night

It was a celebration of basketball. Not men's, not women's...just basketball.

My late mother, who was an ardent women’s libber and card-carrying member of the National Organization for Women back in her day, would have loved the Stephen versus Sabrina 3-point challenge Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Understand, she didn’t particularly care for sports – OK, she didn’t care at all – but she would have been focused on the TV Saturday night for this modern-day Battle of the Sexes. I still remember 1973, when female tennis star Billie Jean King took on an old hustler named Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome, and my mom was in her glory as King whipped up on Riggs.

She also would have been immensely proud that Sabrina Ionescu, the WNBA star who plays for the New York Liberty, pushed Golden State’s Steph Curry, falling short by a more-than-respectable 29-26 score.

This was the unquestioned highlight of All-Star Saturday night, far superior to the (ho-hum) Skills Competition, the 3-Point contest and the Slam Dunk competition, which were won by Team Pacers, Damian Lillard and the G-League’s Mac McClung, respectively. This is why we showed up and paid rapt attention to a first-of-its-kind (and not the last) matchup between Curry, the greatest 3-point shooter in NBA history, and Ionescu, who broke the all-time 3-point record (men’s and women’s) by scoring 37 points, including making 25 of her last 26 shots, in the WNBA All-Star Game’s 3-point contest last summer.