Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in the Heat‘s victory over the Wizards on Tuesday, becoming the sole owner of the second-highest scoring game in NBA history.
In doing so, Adebayo passed Kobe Bryant‘s longstanding 81-point second-place mark, which the former Lakers star recorded on January 22, 2006.
Adebayo went 20-of-43 from the field, including 7-of-22 from three-point range, and 36-for-43 from the free throw line. He broke the NBA record for made free throws (previously 28, by Adrian Dantley and Wilt Chamberlain), attempted free throws (previously 39, by Dwight Howard), and became the first player ever to ever attempts 30 or more free throws and 20 or more three-pointers in a game, per The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov (Twitter link).
By the end of the night, the Wizards were triple-teaming Adebayo and intentionally fouling his teammates just to keep the Heat’s center off the free-throw line, but a quick spin move in transition drew the shooting foul and allowed Adebayo to reach his goal. He was subbed out soon after getting to 83 points.
Head coach Erik Spoelstra said the three-time All-Star made his decision-making down the stretch easy.
“I didn’t even dare think about taking him out,” Spoelstra said, per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link).
Chamberlain’s 100-point record has remained unbroken since March 2, 1962.
10 more FT than the previous record. Wild. Regardless congrats Bam. Also Wilt’s 100 is fake lol
Bro the wizards are completely trash 150 to bam and bench players. NBA had a lack of talent. Bottom teams are terrible.
Congratulations Bam, if they give it take it. Passed up Kobe.
Star I don’t ever want to heard about you being a defender. Can give up 84 to bam
8/10 on the ragebait, nice work lol
I think we can stop with the “SGA is a free throw merchant” when a dude takes 43 free throws in a game….
Arguing with the people making this argument is pointless because they made up their minds long before they even posted the comment.
SGA is a free throw merchant. Bam also did that in this one game.
It’s a players job to put points on the board for their team. That being said, it’s unsavory to rely on calls that send you to the line to get those points. Shai is a fantastic baller but most of us would prefer more natural scoring.
Wilt’s 100 is fake?? I listened to that game, March 2, 1962 (not on TV those days). He earned every point. He scored 31 points in the 4th quarter with all 5 Knicks hanging all over him. You sound like you’re talking out of the back of your pants.
There’s video of ww1, but none of his 100 point game?
Ww1 was a little bit more of a bigger deal than a basketball game
Great comparison, really high level thinking.
Why don’t we have photographs of the Dinosaurs?
Because you didn’t take any
He also got robbed of the record SGA is about to break.
I should’ve mentioned my comments were directed at Phillie old timer. Thank you for the history lesson. Can we see if SGA can do 93 more?
@Phillieace: Don’t give Wilt deniers the time of day. It’s a strange Gen Z meme thing to doubt Wilt’s point total. They don’t understand how little the NBA was televised up into even the late ’70s.
They replayed the radio broadcast on KNBR (slow sports news day I guess). I listened to it. It’s real.
You got to know how to filter information. There are lots of sources for reliable truthful information out there, but it takes a little work. Don’t go through life thinking everything is a conspiracy and the secret truth is unknowable. That Q stuff will cook your reality. Figure out how to use your critical thinking skills and don’t be so quick to judgment.
Also there is no video of WWI. Film, yes.
@rct
my best response to those non- believers is…. why? why would they bother to fake it? you know how many ppl would need to conspire something like that? for what possible reason???
Straight conspiracy freaks.
LOL oh please. The Warriors were intentionally fouling the Knicks to get the ball back. It was an even bigger farce than this game.
He “earned” every point. Lol sure. The only difference between this game and Wilt’s game was this one was televised. The 4th quarter of Wilt’s game was an even bigger travesty than this one.
not this fake
Dude averaged 50 for a season but yeah, it was fake. * eye roll *
Bam Adebayo 🙏🙏
Totally had this on my nba Bingo card..
Yeah, coming into the season my three predictions I was most certain about were:
– Thunder repeat
– Kings suck
– Bam Adebayo scores 83 points
Bam has long been one of my fave modern players, great to see him drop an all-time game. Remember it wasn’t so long ago he was a “d-only” guy…nope never again! Bam is forever a 20/10 threat, on top of the defense!
Yo bam has worked his tail off to become who he is. Guy deserves all the credit!
A lot of players could do this if they were as selfish as Kobe.
Games like this are team efforts which also require the coaching staff to approve. They really should happen more often. Lots of players could do it. 60-70 should happen 20 times a season, but coaches put the guys on the bench for “rest.” Rest is the biggest hoax of the 21st century.
Great job by him. Helluva performance. People who don’t appreciate it aren’t real NBA fans. The game always rewards you when you put in the work like he has.
The delusional old heads are going to say “Todays NBA is soft”, crying over every NBA record being broken🤣
Great performance by Bam.
Not every record. Wilt’s is still holding steady…for now.
Fake record, no video proof
@Tigers: go research how many NBA games were televised back then, much less video-recorded. Or how much sports in general was televised or recorded.
Wilt avg 23 reb for a 14 yr career.
And 50 pts 26 Reb for a yr. He was so ahead of his time:
I guess the American Civil War is fake too. Crazy to believe that something didn’t happen unless you’ve got a video. Especially in the age of AI generated video.
It’s incredible how stupid some of these people can be.
Bill Russell with his 11 fake rings. They weren’t televised.
Bam 83 is fake, all AI
Dumb comment
He was being sarcastic.
Wrong, it’s a genius comment, just went over your head
Got it. So you actually think Bam would have scored more than 50 points against the Piston’s in the 80’s.
Now who’s the one that’s delusional???
The better question is why do people get so worked up about records being broken? What’s it to you? They’re all contextual and circumstantial in the end, so this picking and choosing game is beyond dumb.
It’s as dumb as awarding the “real” championship to teams that suffered injuries and got knocked out of the playoffs earlier than they otherwise might’ve. Injuries happen too. The winner is the winner. Get over it.
Teams were still scoring a lot in the 80s. The PPG average in the 80s was 109. The so-called “physical defense” of the 80s is overrated as hell.
And yes Bam easily could have scored 50 points in the 80s. You’re acting like as if Bam is a role player.
You old heads are still delusional.
Yea but it came against the wizards. They aren’t even an NBA team.
Raptors were a sorry team when Kobe got 81.
Breaking news good teams usually play defense and not giving up 60+
The crazy thing to me is the Kobe 81pts game was over 20 years ago. Time flies, congrats to Bam.
So listen, my Wiz played like garbage, played even worse than you’d expect for the tanking. No one can deny that. But for Bam to go 36-43 from the free throw line is pretty ridiculous. There has to be some looking into the situation by the NBA whether its into the officiating or the tank job by the Wizards because this was a pretty questionable performance by both the wizards and officials in my opinion. But, you give the man his flowers for sure, Bam’s a damn good basketball player. I don’t think he’s in the same conversation as Kobe or Wilt, but here we are in todays NBA.
Have you looked at their roster? Who plays defense in that rotation? Coulibaly, Champagnie, and Anthony Gill are the literal only people that played that can play any semblance of defense. The Heat also had a lot of disruptors on the floor, and got a lot of deflections and steals, which led to points
When this game started it was a strong matchup for the Heat, mostly b/c Washington has no guard defense, and then they traded for another of the same guards they already have that is making $50 million
I’m not trying to take anything away from Bam, you still have to make the shots from the field and the free throw line. But 43 shots for one guy is rather suspicious.
On a side note, I imagine a good portion of the non existent defense is due to tanking and not actually trying to win. Now if every single one of those fouls on Bam are legitimate and the wizards are the only reason this happened, head coach has to go. I don’t care that the directive is to lose or how do they like to put it? “Focus on player development “?
I was there; they had 3 people tackling him at one point…there were maybe 2 fouls I would argue werent shooting fouls, but they may have been in the bonus, but I cant say for sure, b/c I was more focused on the game. Washington tried relentlessly to stop him from getting there. They were denying him the ball on in bounds, fouling other people, trying to foul him the moment he touched the ball to keep him from shooting, literally stalling on offense and running out shot clocks to lower the amount of possessions, etc
Its wild how James Hardens career regular season stats matter so much, while nobody ever talks about how he got those, but this is some conspiracy
Then where are anybody else’s 83?
Harden’s career high ftas is 27.
Not even Close
For Bam to be the guy to do it. Is amazing in itself. Yeas the team helped him. It still is a big time achievement. Specially like Davey says. He was known as D guy only. Great day for Bam. Plus always cool when we can talk about and look back at Wilt.
Giving 1 player 14 more FA attempts then the other team combined sure would help them get a scoring record… Wizards should get #1 after this as a NBA gift.
Wiz should get fined for fouling Bam 25 times and forfeit their draft pick.
Boooooo
For those trashing this performance, you didn’t watch the game clearly. Bam was all over the place and getting to the line at will, even though he was tripled team. Most incredible performance I’ve seen in a Heat uniform.
Proud to see how far he’s come from when he was a rookie Defense-only center.
No one is trashing Bam, they’re pointing out the performance of the wizards and refs which your comment only makes their case even more
Then you have reading comprehension issues because their comment does anything but that, whatever you think of the performance.
You didn’t watch the game if you think Bam was getting triple teamed in the first 45 minutes.
More than a few in the new/old media trashing, discrediting Bam’s historic night.
It was a perfect storm of sorts, the HEAT are on a great stretch of games (Spo always gets the HEAT primed post All Star break) …. Bam himself was on a scoring binge in their winning streak.
The cherry on top, it was against the woeful WIZARDS.
Hate to say it, Davey is correct that this is quite an achievement for Bam, since he’s far from being a scorer …. he worked his tail off, being where he is now.
I still remember the draft grades when the HEAT got Bam …. many calling it a poor selection.
Exactly lol. He’s like the last person you think would do this. All these haters here just exposed themselves and they don’t even know it.
On the way to the arena, the person driving me mentioned he got his 10thk points the other night, and I said I think his next few thousand will come a lot faster, and they asked why, and I just said he can/is relied on to score now, though I wouldnt care if he never scores another point b/c he doesnt need that to contribute to winning, and then he proceeds to put on the greatest scoring game in Heat history lol
He was number 1 on my board with what was left at the time, that I was aware was healthy, though the person I had been hoping for got drafted right ahead of him, and I also liked Jarrett Allen. I did have OG Anunoby ahead of him, but the entire league thought he would miss a lot more time from his ACL injury, but he was healthy
I did complain about drafting him for a couple of days though when I found out about OG being healthy, and also mainly just the fact they had kept Whiteside. For me, my argument was why draft a big that high overall, when you just paid one that isnt even as good, but I immediately got past it in his first summer league appearance, when I realized he had improved from what I already had him as. He instantly was someone I identified as someone that would likely end up 1 of my absolute all time favorite players, and thats exactly what happened
When he made his 3rd 3 in the first quarter, I just was thinking about how much work he had put in to get there
Bam is the Zo. He is the Wade. The UD. The carrier of the culture. I have never flinched on this
Most fans don’t give him his due. He impacts winning all the time. He is not spectacular. Just steady as heck. He deserves tge hype. Just a great baller and teammate.
“Hate to say it, Davey is correct”
MANY SUCH CASES…HMMMM….
Good era this one, lols. And I like Bam.
Bam’s gonna get a statue when he retires. BAM!!!💥
Wizards helped bam get
That 83pts so he needs to thank em and wiz is tanking.
lol 😂
He plays the Wizards 2 more time. Congrats to Bam, I feel no pity for the tanking organizations they deserve to get records placed on them. The players are not tanking as they want a job in the league .
His previous career high was 41. When was the last time a guy more than doubled his career high AFTER becoming an all-star?
2026
F those new/old media slamming Bam, the HEAT and the WIZARDS (slam the WIZARDS, I guess), for Bam’s scoring record.
F Tim McMahon.
Everyone who got a scoring record, at some of point of their game, a decision was put forth ……. since the game was more or less decided, so pull out the guy OR go for a scoring record.
It’s not everyday, every game that this happens …… and when it does and the guy and his team does go for a record, they get panned by media for stat-padding (?)
Damned if you, damned if you don’t.
Yep!! Acting like the object of the game isn’t to get the ball in the hoop and stop the other guys from getting the ball in the hoop.
If you cannot stop him why can’t he go for the record? Do they expect his teammates to also not help him achieve something great?
43 three throws for one guy is an awful lot. Shae, Brunson etc over to you.
23 more than in Kobe’s 81 pt game is INDEED an awful lot – emphasis on awful.
At NBA is OK. Add 22 three balls to the 43 free throws. That is ridiculous. I do like Bam, he’s a winning player but I’m glad I didn’t watch it.
Ray Ray, Reggie, Nash etc would all be extremely jealous they couldn’t play in this era. 65 shots from the line and land of plenty. CRAZY.
I agree. I was actually surprised they kept Bam in to go for the record, since that is not really the Heat’s style. But, as you pointed out, Spo is pretty good at reading the team.
I think he wants the team to loosen up and have more fun while still putting forth max effort at both ends. Bam epitomizes that. If it was Ware he would have taken him out.
The only other player Spo might have allowed to stay in Herro, because he is a hometown favorite, (whether you want to admit it or not) and he wants to up his value for trading purposes (in my opinion).
He knows they are not good enough to win the championship this year, but he knows they are good enough to upset a few teams and go on a playoff run if everyone buys in.
Congrats to Bam!
Miami is my least favorite playoff opponent. Spo is a magician.
1) for anyone demeaning this because of FT’s.. go watch the game… THEY WERE LITERALLY TRIPLE TEAM FULL COURT PRESSING HIM IN THE 4TH 2) Bam was probably building a HOF resume similar to a Chris Bosh or Chris Mullin….. this probably put him in Springfield in 10-15 years
Get real, he shot 27 fts in the 1st 3 quarters.
and? ……
And that’s 7 more than the 20 Kobe shot in the entire game, let alone the 23 more he needed to pass him.
The heat were playing without 80% of their scoring offense in this game… THEY WERE TRIPLE TEAMING HIM lol
this game gets him into the HOF, the career is really good enough right now too
he needs another few years of this caliber play.. maybe another olympic team nod (would be his 3rd) … but he’s 70-80% there… this will be his exhibit A though
NBA HOF isnt the MLB HOF, NBA lets in just about anyone notable, they have put in people with way less qualifications than Bam currently has.
its the basketball HOF not the NBA hof.. that’s why I reference team USA… if he had a standout NCAA career that would be part of it too (he doesn’t)… he needs to add to the resume but he would get votes if he retired tomorrow… he will probably get in with another 3-5+ years of production levels he has now
Right, I meant “basketball HOF” and used NBA because I was comping it with MLB, just a brain fart there, but still, its a larger pool and the bar is lower than MLB, who doesn’t even let its greats in due to bad press.
Give Luka 43 FTs on any given night and he breaks 83 easy. He gets fouled frequently on drives to the rim as is, but the refs swallow their whistles in this post-Harden NBA. The inconsistency in how refs call games is an issue driving the criticism.
did you really just suggest BAM ADEBAYO gets better calls than people like Luka or James Harden?!?! lol… this is getting silly… it was the perfect storm game and he went off in a way he literally never will again. Why does everyone try to tear people down? damn
Obviously he did in this game, and to such a huge level compared to his previous high, it’s beyond suspicious and looks corrupt.
did you watch the game or read a box score? I want you to watch it and point out a single “call” he got… a single foul that wasn’t a foul… $10 says you can’t
No one is saying Bam didn’t get fouled. The issue is nobody else is getting those same calls on a nightly basis. There seems to be an unofficial cap of 10-20 FTs max for any “star player” on any given night. The FT cap was only removed for Bam lol that’s the issue
I’ve watched almost every single game Bam has ever played…. HE HAS NEVER BEEN GIVEN STAR CALLS IN HIS LIFE lol
There are literally dozens of fouls that aren’t called in every game because the refs decide they’re marginal.
Most of the videos don’t show the fouls that led to free throws, but there’s at least 1 in this vid that would almost always have been a play-on at the 7:25 point. Also most of the time at 6:55 this marginal contact would have been a no call on a made layup.
link to youtube.com
Honestly its more on the Wizards “defense” than Bam. Bam still would have gotten 50-60 in that game with them playing normal defense, not gang tackling him every play lol
I agree lol. Without the record-setting amount of FTs handed to Bam, he still puts up an all-timer. It’s the 43 FTs (that they won’t give anyone else…not even Steph lol) that’s a bit sus for me. Bam’s a great player regardless no one is disputing that
If you saw the game, it wasn’t even sus, like the Wizards were literally gang tackling him every time – that’s a foul. It was especially bad in 4Q. I cannot believe these are NBA players who did this. Everyone on the Wizards should be ashamed on themselves right now. They also gave up 136 points in the next game to Orlando. They might be this bad every game, which I am sure gambling companies must love.
This just sums up what the NBA has become today, stat padding for the crystal generation, fixed games for betting purposes, for sure someone, somewhere became richer on this joke of a game. If you believe this was just a lucky strike then you´re more naive than a teenage anime character
100 percent
You’re right man and the evidence is there because these high scoring games happen SO often.
83 points? Holy crap!!!!! Way to go bam. Can’t wait to see the highlights.
Take 43 shots and you get 43 free throws you better get about 75 points or something’s wrong.
@ Landini…Yep, knocking down 7 triples sounds good unless you’ve jacked up 22 of them. And in a blow out.
Let’s keep this simple, regardless as to how many shots/free throws Bam got and who he played against, 83 is still 83!
Drug test
Referee malpractice is getting worse.
Smh!
Getting to the ft line 43 times while the wiz were trying to foul his teammates is the biggest take. Congrats bam on by far being the hardest one on that court yesterday!
Good on KD and Giannis for being the only 2 normal people (that I saw) congratulating Bam. Some coaches and players and sportscenter anchors are absolute clowns. These people ended sports for me; the thing I’ve cared most about most of my life, with this type of $#!+. This is the reason my burnout is what it is, and I can no longer engage with it, and am left with apathy, in general, most of the time, now. It is what it is. Always discredit the Heat at all costs
What is amazing is on my way to the arena, I literally said Bam could never score another point, and I wouldnt care b/c of everything else he does. Then, he proceeded to be incredible on both ends of the floor. Nothing was forced until the end when he started getting tired and knocked to the ground a lot more, and by then, he had 77 points, and had missed 7 free throws. I’ve only ever really seen 1 or 2 games like this, and the last one was over 20 years ago (the ending was a maybe a little Devin bookerish, though this was in a win, and still within reasonable direction of the game being played, but by then, again, he already had 77, and had missed 7 fts lol)
I hoped this would get clowns to shut up about Bam, finally, but I guess I was wrong. I dont care though; Bam is the carrier of the culture, his number will be in the rafters someday, and you will remember his [_@%!#& name
This was years of hard work culminating. I was thinking about that in the first quarter after his 3rd 3. This man wore Kobe’s almost every game of his career until he got his own shoe. Got to do it in front of his mom. He said he wished he knew what Kobe would have said, but I’ll take a quick bet on that and guess it would have been something like “would have had 90 if you didnt miss those free throws.”
If you are crying about a number that wasnt even the dudes best game, in a game his team almost lost, you have lost the plot. Man up. Maybe Phil shouldn’t have taken him out when he bad 62 against Dallas, if you care about this stuff so much, but this just shows everything I have said for years. Nobody cares about winning; you only care about counting stats, specifically points per game
Kobe woulda absolutely given him that Coach Carter.
Just because Bam got 83 still doesnt mean Jordan would average 40 in today’s NBA.
Well, actually Bam getting 83 is proof Jordan would average 40 today.
*at least
Jordans knees would be destroyed by age 27 if he played today. He played in the slow motion era, none of those dudes are surviving in this game, which literally looks 5x the speed to any random 80s game you see on espn classic.
‘Bout time someone passed Kobe… now can someone please pass Wilt!
Never heard of this player before last night. I don’t watch NBA anymore unless Celtics are in the finals. How many players fouled out of this game with all the fouls that were committed on purpose?
Maybe you remember the time he blocked Jayson Tatum at the rim to win the game in the Conference Fjnals
Despite the Wizards’ 34 pfs, no one fouled out.
I didn’t know Ricky Davis was still in the league.