Bam Adebayo scored 83 points, and it doesn’t matter how he got there

Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in an NBA game on Tuesday. I’m going to repeat that because it’s not working properly on a certain part of the internet. Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in an NBA game on Tuesday. This is, by any definition, one of the most incredible single-game events in NBA history. Michael Jordan has never scored 83 points in an NBA game. LeBron James has never scored 83 points in an NBA game. The man who scored 83 points in the second-highest scoring game in NBA history entered Tuesday’s contest against the Washington Wizards with his previous career high of 41. He doubled his career to the top overnight!

This should be a celebration. The homegrown and often underrated star during a rising season is elevating his short-lived Miami Heat team into the history books. This is the stuff of a sports movie. But sports movies are often gone. They disappeared with the birth of social media, and what do people do best in the age of social media?

Complain.

“This is a shame on Kobe’s 81,” said one viral tweet, approaching 9,000 likes as of this writing. “Mickey Mouse 81,” someone texted me after Adebayo tied Bryant. Los Angeles Lakers public address announcer Lawrence Tanter declared Adebayo’s 83-point outburst “a sad footnote in NBA history” when the Lakers hosted the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night.

For now, I’m just sitting tight-lipped because, and I’m sorry to repeat myself, someone scored 83 points in an NBA game! This is history! It’s one of the best things you’ll ever see on a basketball court! So, what are people complaining about? Let’s dive in.

“It was all free throws.”

Yes, Adebayo set NBA records with 36 free throws and 43 attempts. Entering Tuesday, Adrian Dantley held the NBA record with 28 free throws in a game. That means Adebayo scored eight more points at the line than the previous record holders. One of them was Wilt Chamberlain. No one brings the record number of free throws made in a 100-point game. Another is Danley, who scored 46 points in that game. Eight free throws weren’t closing that gap. There were seven games in NBA history prior to Adebayo’s in which a player made 25 free throws. The top scorer, besides Chamberlain, was Michael Jordan with 58 points. If Adebayo had just tied the previous record, he would have ended up with 75 points and moved from the second-highest scoring game in NBA history to fourth.

“The Witches have appeared.”

Even Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka acknowledged that last point as an explanation for what happened. Yes, witches are evil. These types of games tend to happen against bad teams. Chamberlain scored 100 against the 29-51 New York Knicks. Bryant scored 81 against a Toronto Raptors team that went 27-55. Chamberlain and Devin Booker are the only players to have scored 70 points against a team that finished the season with a winning record. There are other groups that are bad. No one scored 80 points against the largely ineffective Brooklyn Nets this week. Everyone else in the league got a chance at the Wizards this season. Their previous high was Donovan Mitchell’s 48.

“It was garbage time.”

Adebayo had the fifth-highest scoring quarter in the last 30 years of NBA history on Tuesday. It came in the first quarter, where it scored 31 points. He had a career-high 43 at halftime, and 63 after three quarters (figuratively appropriate since, in another famous game, Bryant reached 63 in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks and sat for the fourth) to break James’ single-game record for the Heat franchise (61). Adebayo attempted eight field goals and 16 free throws in the fourth quarter Tuesday. Kobe Bryant hit 13 field goals and 12 free throws in the fourth quarter of his 81-point game. Bryant was the only Laker to score in the final seven minutes of that game. His final 17 points all came in the final five and a half minutes leading by double digits. That game was more competitive than this one, but let’s not pretend there wasn’t some padding in that game, either.

“It doesn’t matter because anyone can score a goal at this time.”

So where were all the other 80 point games this season? What about the 70s? Are there 60 singles out there? No. The season high this year was 56, by Nikola Jokić, and it came in an overtime game. Chamberlain scored 100 points in the 1961-62 season. At that point in league history, teams averaged fewer than 108 field goal attempts per game. This season, that average is nearly 89. The Heat are the fastest team in the NBA, but the speed back then made basketball a completely different game. If Adebayo has the help of a season, so does Chamberlain.

“He wasn’t working well, he missed more shots than he made!”

I’ll admit it’s funny watching Bryant fans turn into police officers because, you know, a guy who once took 50 shots in a game. I was just wondering who else should have shot the ball in Miami? Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell, Kel’El Ware and Nikola Jović all sat out Tuesday. There wasn’t exactly anyone else for Washington’s defense to step in. It was going to be a very busy and probably underwhelming night. He just turned the volume up to record levels. Did the Heat force him in the end? Yes. Yes they do. They had an opportunity in NBA history and they went for it.

Kobe’s night may have been better, but don’t knock Bam

Look, let’s be honest about this: Bryant’s 81-point game was probably more impressive than Adebayo’s 83. You were working very well. It came in a more competitive game against a more serious opponent, and rightly so, it came at a point in NBA history that wasn’t very scorer-friendly. Although the league had opened up the game by eliminating hand checks in 2006, it had yet to figure out how to use the opportunity to create more effective offenses. The 3-point conversion was still small, and the average offense scored just 106.2 points per 100 possessions in that span. We are at 115.3 this season. If you’re a Bryant fan trying to preserve the legacy of your favorite player, I think you can take solace in this. While Adebayo was against the Wizards, Bryant’s night against the Raptors was even better.

But there is no reason to drop one player to support another. This idea that Adebayo had an inappropriate 83 point game that should be dismissed in favor of Bryant or was not a worthy part of NBA history is ridiculous. If you were going to play the game in an 83-point game, someone would have done it by now. All of this season’s top scorers have had a chance at the Wizards. All of the best scorers in NBA history played against bad teams and had opportunities to increase their stats in garbage time.

What happened to Adebayo was something of a perfect storm. The dominant player faced a bad team without the best offensive linemen and got very hot early. The game was close enough for his coach to continue to play him deep in the second half, and when he rested it became a possibility, history was within reach. Maybe those situations are rare, but it’s not like they’re completely unheard of. In fact, it’s not like what happened to Bryant or Chamberlain, or what happens to anyone who crosses the 70-point threshold.

Have you ever wondered why there are only five 50-point games in NBA Finals history? It’s because nobody actually gets 50 points under really bad conditions. When the opponent is good, when the stakes are very high, when the intensity is high, it is not possible to push 70 or 80 points. From that point of view, basically any 70-plus-point game is a bit of a lie. It’s only going to happen against bad teams during the dog days of the regular season with garbage time stats packing and a loose whistle. And, if you want to say that Bryant’s game was very impressive, that’s fine. But let’s not pretend he scored 81 points against the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He did it against a washed-up Jalen Rose and a coach who refused to double him.

And you know what? It’s still unbelievable. Anyone who scores 80 or more points in an NBA game is going to be amazing. This should not be complicated. This is not a big-picture statement about Bryant’s or Adebayo’s places in history. It was a random, fun puzzle that we should be able to enjoy without all these choices.