Bam Adebayo recreates Wilt Chamberlain’s historic photo after coming up 17 points shy of the all-time scoring record.
In a unique twist of history, the small area between Philadelphia and New Jersey are all intertwined in NBA’s three-highest scoring games.
Wilt Chamberlain put up 100 points playing for the Philadelphia Warriors. That team would become the Golden State Warriors, but still, it counts more as Philly lore than anything else.
Philly’s own Kobe Bryant poured on 81 points with the Los Angeles Lakers. Yes, he played his whole career in LA, but Kobe’s Philadelphia roots were always part of his story — like the time he was booed relentlessly at the Philadelphia-hosted 2002 All-Star game.
And now there’s Bam Adebayo. He’s originally from Newark, New Jersey — maybe not the Delaware Valley, but strikingly close. He just eclipsed Kobe with an 83-point game that has fans riled up in anger equally as amazement.
Look, we got no dog in this fight. We put all three performances in legendary status, but… there are some differences in how each player got their stats up. Just for fun, we want to evaluate all three performances. Completely unbiased, and you can think quantify how each measures up historically.
Wilt Chamblelain’s 100-Point Game Remembered
It’s become an internet meme: “did Wilt really score 100?” The performance fell victim to the mentality of “pics or it didn’t happen.” It’s true, there’s no video evidence of the game. However, that’s more due to the state of the NBA at the time than any conspiracy theory.
In 1962, the NBA was a floundering league, far from the worldwide behemoth it is today. Few games were televised, including this one that featured a Knicks team dead last in the league at the time. The Philly-New York matchup was also played in Hershey, Pennsylvania, not even Philadelphia. It was not uncommon for “home” games to actually be nearby games instead.
Still, there was a few thousand people that attended the game, and stormed the court when Wilt hit the historic 100-point mark. The public announcer was mentioning his score total after every made point. After three quarters, Wilt was up to 69 points scored.
The final quarter was actually reminiscent of what we just saw from Bam’s Heat against the Wizards. There was a non-stop barrage of fouls. The Knicks, at first, tried to waste the 24-second shot clock on possessions to avoid further embarrassment. The Warriors realized this and began intentionally fouling to get the ball back and feed Chamberlain some more, as the Heat just did.
New York responded by fouling back players on the Philly, besides Chamberlain. During this blizzard of finals, Wilt scored 25 points in the last eight minutes of the game. Cue the rushing of the court and cue the picture of him holding the paper with 100 points, one of the few pieces of evidence of the game (along with bits and pieces of a recovered radio broadcast).
Bam Adebayo’s 83-Point Game Remembered
We will be more light on details here since this just happened a few days ago, and there’s evidence everywhere unlike 60 years ago. It’s been the subject of sports talk ever since then, with emotions ranging from bewilderment to anger.
For us, it was more of a surprise than anything else. Before dropping 83, Adebayo’s career high for a single game was 41 points — and that was five years ago. If top betting sites would’ve put odds out on what players would eclipse Kobe’s record, Adebayo likely would’ve not even made the top-20 favorites. Seriously!
Anyhoo, to quickly recap, Bam went off for the second-highest scoring night in NBA history thanks in large part to a historic free-throw night. He went to the line an NBA-record 43 times, and also made 36 of em, which is a league all-time high for a single game.
Outside of free throws, Bam attempted 43 field goals, with 22 of them being three-point attempts. Only 7 threes went in, and on the night, Bam shot 46.3 percent from the field.
Critics, many of them being Kobe fanatics, are arguing Adebayo stat-padded a little too much toward the end. The Heat defeated the Wizards 150-129. Despite being up by double digits throughout the game, they Bam stayed in the game and netted 42 minutes out of 48.
For reference, Chamberlain played all 48 minutes during his 100-point outing. One quick look at the box score shows Philadelphia led by 16 points after the first quarter and maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way before winning 169-147 — a 22-point differences compared to 21 for the Heat and Wizards.
The similarities between the two don’t end there. Like Wilt, his teammates were ferociously trying to get Bam the ball back during the fourth quarter. Missing free throws on purpose (so Bam could get the offensive board) and yes, fouling right away to get back possession.
From what we know of Wilt’s game — the box score, the reporters and fans that attended — it feels close to Bam’s game, minus the free-throw attempts. Wilt was 28-of-32 from the free-throw line. He did most of his damage from field-goal range, going 36-out-of-63 (55 percent). But to be fair to Abendayo, Wilt also played six more minutes.
Kobe Bryant 81-Point Game Remembered
And then there’s Kobe Bryant, who’s not a big man like Wilt and Bam are considered in their time. His game, too, wasn’t not nearly as high scoring or lopsided. The Lakers won 122-104 over the Raptors, making Kobe responsible for about 60 percent of his teams total output.
More than that, angry Kobe diehards argue the Lakers needed every point to win the game. Toronto led that game by 14 points at halftime. At the time, it was not shaping up to be a historic night for Kobe. After two quarters, Bryant was only at 26 points. What follows was an offensive barrage.
Kobe went off for 55 in the second half. At the start of the fourth quarter, it was only a six-point lead for the Lakers despite Bryant’s dizzing pace. Los Angeles would not take a double-digit lead until the six-minute mark of the fourth. By then, the Lakers were feeding the ball strictly to Kobe, no other player for Los Angeles took a shot in the last seven minutes of the game.
But… unlike the other two games, the Lakers did not resort to intentional fouling to give Bryant the ball back. Speaking of fouling, Bryant was 18-of-20 from the free throw line.
Of the three, Kobe was the most efficient scorer. He went 28 of 46 (61 percent) from field goal range. From beyond the arc, Bryant was seven out of 13.
That’s how each of the three games played out. It’s on you to decide who was the “most impressive”, which even then, feels like grasping for straws. All three are out of this world, just in slightly different ways.
But hey, this is sports. Debating performances and legacies are why we enjoy it all so much so fire away with it here too!
