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Out-of-nowhere scoring bonanza from Miami Heat big man was stunning, but not on same level as Kobe Bryant's 81 vs. the Raptors.
Published Mar 11, 2026 • 5 minute read
Miami Heat teammates celebrate after Bam Adebayo (right) scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards.
Miami Heat teammates celebrate after Bam Adebayo (right) scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards. AP Photo
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Talk about unlikely. If players were polled before Tuesday night about which all-star from the past five seasons would be their choice as least likely to have an all-time scoring performance, Miami’s Bam Adebayo would have been high on the list.
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After all, Adebayo — a three-time all-star — had never scored more than 41 points in 624 games for the Heat.
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He’s one of the NBA’s best defenders and has added a somewhat dangerous three-point shot to his arsenal in recent years, but few would have expected the former Kentucky raw talent (the most he scored there was only 25) to even get to 50 points.
Only Golden State’s Draymond Green (career-high of 31 points) Toronto’s Scottie Barnes (35 points), Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen (40), Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert (35) and Detroit’s Jalen Duren (33) would probably be less likely of the 2020s all-stars than Adebayo to go off for 83 points in a game.
He had only scored more than 35 four times over the years, had never taken more than 27 free throws or hit more than 14 in a game before his out-of-nowhere, league-shaking game against Washington which saw him go 36-for-43 from the line. He had only ever hit more than three three-pointers twice before nailing seven against the Wizards.
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Adebayo hadn’t even been averaging 20 points per game and was third in Miami scoring before notching 83 — two more than Kobe Bryant managed against the Raptors on that magical night in January of 2006.
Bryant’s game for the ages had stood as the runner-up to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 for two decades before Adebayo’s outburst — with a lot of help from head coach Erik Spoelstra, Heat teammates who even fouled to get him more opportunities, the woeful Wizards and the referees — to produce this memorable moment.
A Wizards broadcaster even thought Adebayo would be subbed out after tying Bryant.
"And out of respect Erik Spoelstra will pull Bam Adebayo…"
– Wizards announcer Chris Miller thought Bam would stop at Kobe's 81 😂 Nope pic.twitter.com/34iIikoAD1
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) March 11, 2026
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It was far different than what Bryant did, the legendary shooting guard willed his Lakers back into a game that seemed lost and there was nothing those Raptors could do to cool him off, while Adebayo and the Heat conjured memories of Ricky Davis trying to achieve a triple-double through circus-style theatrics back in the day with the way they went about getting him to his 83 points.
In fact, more than one league source told the Toronto Sun it was “a farce” and some of the online reaction echoed those thoughts.
Houston head coach Ime Udoka said after beating the Raptors on Tuesday that Adebayo’s 43 free-throw attempts (and playing the young, undersized Wizards) “told the story right there.”
Udoka had earlier said “first thing you think is, how?” about the performance. Miami missing its top two scorers and other key players also had a lot to with it.
WHY WAS IT HISTORIC?
Miami has employed some of the best scorers in NBA history — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, plus flawless three-point gunners like Ray Allen and Glen Rice. But only LeBron had even made it to 60 points with the Heat and only four had scored 50. Wild stuff.
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There had only been 15 games of more than 70 points scored in NBA history and six had been by Chamberlain, who was a freak of nature nobody in his era — aside from Boston’s Bill Russell — had any answers for size or athleticism-wise.
While it’s true scoring is way up over the past decade, largely thanks to the explosion of three-point attempts, games like this don’t come around too often. Nikola Jokic’s 56 points were the NBA high this season before Adebayo eclipsed that in just the third quarter on Tuesday.
After Chamberlain scored 66 in 1969, only four players scored more (Pete Maravich, David Thompson, Michael Jordan and David Robinson) until Bryant’s 81 in 2006. Bryant dropped 65 a year later, but it was another decade until Phoenix’s Devin Booker scored 70.
It took six more years for anyone to have another massive game, though between Jan. 1, 2023, and Jan. 26, 2024, Donovan Mitchell, Damian Lillard, Joel Embiid and Luka Doncic all eclipsed 70 points (with Doncic’s 73 being the most).
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Adebayo set new league marks for free-throw attempts and makes, set a Heat mark for most points in any quarter and Miami’s record for points in a half.
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MORE REACTION
There was plenty more reaction to Adebayo’s night. His girlfriend, A’ja Wilson, merely one of the best WNBA players ever (she has four MVP awards and counting) quipped: “Welp won’t have the highest career high in the house anymore.”
Wilson holds the WNBA record of 53 points in a game. She also said: “But at least it gives me something to go after.”
TSN Raptors analyst Sam Mitchell, who was head coach when Bryant scored 81, was giddy on the broadcast Tuesday, drawing laughs from his co-workers when he said as Adebayo’s numbers kept rising: “Come on Bam, get me off the hook baby.”
Adebayo told reporters: “Obviously, my teammates (were) very geeked at halftime. So for me, it was just remaining calm and remaining locked-in and understanding I can go for something special.
“Now, I didn’t think it was gonna be 83.”
Spoelstra maintained “we just talked about continuing to play our game … The ball was finding him, regardless of whether we were calling dead-ball calls specifically for him.”
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REMEMBERING KOBE’S NIGHT
Back in 2006, Bryant had outscored the Raptors 55-41 in the second half in Los Angeles.
“To sit here and say I’ve grasped what has happened, I’d be lying,” Bryant said after the game.
“This was just something that happened,” he added. “It is tough to explain. It is just one of those things.”
The Raptors had led by as many as 18 points in the game.
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Former Toronto Sun Raptors beat writer Mike Koreen had described the performance as “one of those things that you just can’t forget, you just can’t put into perspective no matter how hard you try.
“There are so many vivid memories. I remember calling night editor Paul Ferguson during the fourth quarter and yelling over the crowd noise, trying to stress that whatever was on the Sun sports cover (the NFL) had to be changed,” Koreen recalled in 2015 before Bryant’s final game in Toronto.
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“I remember actually beingannoyed that the famous Laker Girls were standing right in front of me on the baseline, blocking aclear-path view of Bryant’s heroics at the other end of the court. I remember going on the court in a bit of a haze in the immediate aftermath to try to get near the NBA’s top scorer during his live TV interview, and quickly being sent off by a security guard.”
The best quote following Bryant’s 81 came from Jalen Rose a night later.
“The last two or three minutes, should you go clothesline the guy?” Rose told Koreen and other reporters. “Did I think about it? Yeah, I thought about it.
“That would be just as much being abad sport and a hater. You have tosuck it up and take it like a man.“
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