Bam Adebayo scored more points in a single game than anyone in NBA history other than Wilt Chamberlain on Tuesday night, posting a whopping 83 points — two more than the 81 Kobe Bryant posted against the Toronto Raptors in 2006 — in the Miami Heat‘s 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards.
This is an obviously crazy number for any player to put up, but for Adebayo, a player with a career scoring average of 16.1 per game whose previous season high was 32, it’s frankly brain-busting. The numbers he put up across the box score, and ultimately in the NBA annals, are almost impossible to comprehend. So let’s get to them.
Here is Adebayo’s historic night broken down by the numbers.
1
- Adebayo is now No. 1 on the Heat franchise single-game scoring list, besting LeBron James’ previous record of 61 (which remains his career high) before the third quarter was even over.
2
- Adebayo became just the second player to record multiple 40-point halves since the start of the play-by-play era in 1996. Both of those halves came on Tuesday, with 43 in the first and 40 in the second. Only Bryant has more 40-point halves in the play-by-play era with three.
5
- Adebayo’s 31 first-quarter points are the fifth-most in a single quarter in NBA history, trailing Klay Thompson (37), Kevin Love (34), Carmelo Anthony (33), and Karl-Anthony Towns (32).
7
- The seven 3-pointers that Adebayo made on Tuesday set a career high.
- Adebayo is just the seventh player in history to attempt at least 22 3s in a game. He has evolved into an honest 3-point threat, doubling his volume from a year ago, but it’s strange to see his name on a list that includes the likes of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, James Harden, Damian Lillard, J.R. Smith and Marcus Smart .
8
- Adebayo became the eighth center in history to score at least 60 points in a single game, joining Chamberlain, David Robinson, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Towns and George Mikan.
11
- We know that Adebayo is just the third player to reach 80 points, but he is now the 11th player in NBA history to reach the 70-point mark.
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1962 |
36-63 |
— |
28-32 |
100 |
|
Bam Adebayo |
2026 |
20-43 |
7-22 |
36-43 |
83 |
|
Kobe Bryant |
2006 |
28-46 |
7-13 |
18-20 |
81 |
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1961 |
31-62 |
— |
16-31 |
78 |
|
Luka Dončić |
2024 |
25-33 |
8-13 |
15-16 |
73 |
|
David Thompson |
1978 |
28-38 |
— |
17-20 |
73 |
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1962 |
29-43 |
— |
15-19 |
73 |
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1962 |
29-48 |
— |
15-25 |
73 |
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1962 |
29-48 |
14-18 |
72 |
|
|
Damian Lillard |
2023 |
22-38 |
13-22 |
14-14 |
71 |
|
Donovan Mitchell |
2023 |
22-34 |
7-15 |
20-25 |
71 |
|
David Robinson |
1994 |
26-41 |
1-2 |
18-25 |
71 |
|
Elgin Baylor |
1960 |
28-48 |
— |
15-19 |
71 |
|
Joel Embiid |
2024 |
24-41 |
1-2 |
21-23 |
70 |
|
Devin Booker |
2017 |
21-40 |
4-11 |
24-26 |
70 |
|
Wilt Chamberlain |
1963 |
27-38 |
— |
16-22 |
70 |
20
- Thanks to this 83-piece, Adebayo raised his scoring average to an even 20 points per game. If that holds over the next month, it would be just the second time in his career that he has averaged 20 for a season.
- The number of field goals that Adebayo made on Tuesday.
- The number of free throws that Bryant shot in his 81-point game.
36
- The number of free throws Adebayo made on Tuesday was also an NBA record, breaking the previous mark of 28 held by Chamberlain and Adrian Dantley.
42
- The number of minutes that Adebayo played on Tuesday was the same number that Bryant logged in his 81-point game.
43
- The number of points Adebayo had by halftime, topping his previous career high of 41 for an entire game that he notched against the Nets in 2021 for a Heat franchise record.
- The number of field goals Adebayo attempted on Tuesday, three shy of the 46 Bryant put up in his 81-point game. The most any other Heat player attempted was nine (Davion Mitchell).
- The number of free throws Bam attempted on Tuesday, an NBA record, breaking Dwight Howard’s previous mark of 39.
50
- Of the 11 players who have scored at least 70 points in a game, Adebayo is the only one to have shot under 50% from the field (he was 20 for 43 for 46.5%)
60
- Adebayo is the first player in history to score at least 60 points more than his career average in a single game. Again, every other guy who has gone for 60-plus, let alone 70 and 80, has been a 1A scorer. Not Adebayo, who, as mentioned above, was just a 16.1 ppg scorer for his career entering the game.
65
- This is crazy. Adebayo shot 65 combined free throws and 3-pointers on Tuesday, leaving the previous record of 45 held by James Harden (an all-time 3-point and free-throw merchant) in the dust.
79
- This is the most combined points that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade ever scored in a single game for the Heat. Adebayo topped two of the greatest of all-time by himself (he also tied the combined high of 83 from Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, and finished one off the 84 that Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen once put up).
100
- This is tremendous: Adebayo and the great Simone Fontecchio, who scored 18 on Tuesday, are now the only duo in NBA history that doesn’t include Wilt Chamberlain to combine for 100 points in a single game.
- Chamberlain’s 100-point game vs. the Knicks in 1962 remains the NBA single-game record.