Bam Adebayo Scored 83 Points And People Are Mad About It?

Bam Adebayo has already been to two NBA Finals, is a 3-time All-Star, a 5-time All-Defensive team member, and a 2-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA. That is already an extremely impressive resume, and one that will continue to grow, but none of those accolades is what people will remember him by when he retires. As of March 10th, 2026, when people say the name Bam Adebayo, 10, 20, 30 years from now, they will think of him as the player who scored 83 points in an NBA game. The second most points scored in an NBA game by one player, and the most points that anyone has seen on video.

Despite this historic night, there has been anything but a consensus of amazement and excitement among NBA fans.

There are Kobe Bryant fans who are in disbelief that his 81-point performance has been bested. There are NBA fans who think the game shouldn’t be praised because of the amount of free throws Adebayo took, and because of some of the “unethical” decisions made down the stretch of the game. Some people don’t wanna accept the fact that a player who is not thought of as one of the best offensive players in the game was the one to pass Bryant’s 81-point game. There are so many reasons why people are not celebrating this historic performance, and it simply shouldn’t be that way.

Adebayo has been playing his best ball of the season over the past few weeks, and that continued during Tuesday night’s game. He opened the game on fire as he scored 18 of the team’s first 20 points, and he finished the first quarter with 31 points.

At that point, everyone who was paying attention probably figured that maybe he would get to 50 points. Plenty of players have had hot starts to a game and slowed down over the course of the game, so it is understandable not to expect Adebayo to continue his domination, but he did. He finished the first half with 43 points, breaking his previous career high of 41 points, and at that point, it was clear he was in for a special night.

The second half began, and Adebayo picked up where he left off. He scored another 19 points and finished the quarter with 62 points, breaking LeBron James’ franchise record for most points scored in a game, being 61 points. With the fourth quarter set to begin, Adebayo knew he had a chance to pass the 81-point mark, but he wasn’t chasing it yet. Three minutes into the fourth quarter, he had scored a quick eight points, and it put him at 70 points with nine minutes left in the game. With that much time left, it became clear that he and the rest of the team were going to do whatever it took to get him past 81 points.

With about three minutes left in the game, he had reached 77 points, and then things started to get wacky. After 45 minutes, the Washington Wizards began to finally double-team him, and even triple-team him. On the Miami side of things, players were intentionally fouling to keep more time on the clock and intentionally missing free throws to give Adebayo more opportunities to get the ball. While deemed unethical by many, it did work, and over the last three minutes, he was able to nail six free throws and end the game with 83 points.

When people caught wind of the performance Adebayo just had, the first thing they did was look at the box score. Naturally, people gasped when they saw the other record that he broke that night. Adebayo attempted an NBA record 43 free throws, and he made an NBA record 36 of them. The number of free throws attempted is astronomically high, but he was truly fouled on almost every single call. They weren’t terrible calls from the refs; they were true fouls, and regardless, he still had to make the free throws, and he did. Adebayo also made 20 additional field goals, including seven three-pointers, five of which came during his 31 point first-quarter.

Adebayo was not the one who called the whistles or the one who refused to double-team him until he scored 70 points. He just went out and hooped, and he happened to catch fire. As mentioned earlier, he scored 31 in the first quarter, went to halftime with 43 points, entered the fourth quarter with 62, and had 70 with nine minutes left. He was dominant from the moment the ball was tipped, and it brought him to 83 points. He didn’t score 30 points in the fourth quarter; he consistently scored all game long and was simply unstoppable.

83 points might not be a true NBA record, but to many, it will be considered that way, since not many people actually saw Chamberlain score 100 points. No player has ever scored more points in an NBA game that was caught on video than Adebayo. He has cemented himself in the history books forever, and no one can ever take that away from him.

Records are meant to be broken, and at some point, someone might break his. So please, don’t find ways to try to tarnish this phenomenal accomplishment, because it may never happen again, for Adebayo or another player. This performance doesn’t take away from other players’ great games. It just puts Adebayo in the same category as them, with his name being listed slightly above theirs in the record books.

83 points is 83 points; only one player has scored more than that. If it were that easy, more players would do it, but it isn’t. Adebayo may not be a scorer like Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry, but on this night, he was a better offensive player than every single player in the history of the NBA except for one person. It was his night, and no one should be trying to take that away from him. He was dominant right from the start of the game, and it led him all the way to 83 points. No one ever saw this coming, but it happened, and it is awesome.

So now, when people talk about the highest-scoring games in NBA history, the list will no longer say Wilt first and Kobe second. People will say Wilt, Bam, Kobe.

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