Bam Adebayo shoots a free throw to pass Kobe Bryant for the second most points scored in a NBA game during the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s game against the Washington Wizards. The Miami Heat star connected on 36 of 43 attempts from the free throw line in the game. Megan Briggs Getty Images
(Commentary)
Where were you on the night Bam Adebayo broke the brain of every NBA fan on the planet?
There are games that don’t make sense and there are games that immediately become a part of NBA lore, and then there is what Adebayo did for the Miami Heat on Tuesday night.
He scored a mind-blowing 83 points against the Washington Wizards.
It is a number so surreal for anyone, let alone Adebayo, that it would be difficult to believe unless you actually witnessed it. He has now scored more points in a single NBA game than all but Wilt Chamberlain and his 100 from March 2, 1962. He passed Kobe Bryant’s seemingly insurmountable 81-point night for the Los Angeles Lakers on Jan. 22, 2006.
“It’s Wilt, me, then Kobe,” Adebayo said postgame. “Which sounds crazy.”
Adebayo has never been a scorer. He has averaged 20-plus points per game only once in his career, even in the NBA’s offensive bloat era. He had never even scored 50 points in a game; his 83 on Tuesday more than doubled his previous career high, 41, and was still more than his two highest-scoring games combined. He is an All-Star, an Olympic gold medalist and a multidimensional All-Defense bulwark. But not a scorer.
No one saw this coming. And not in the way he did it, either.
Adebayo paved his way to glory at the free-throw line. At times it was pure dominance, at other moments it was pure point-chasing hilarity. He may not have the single-game scoring record, but he now stands as the NBA’s single-game free-throw king.
He took 43 free throws, more than any other player in an NBA game. (Dwight Howard had the previous record with 39.) He made more free throws, 36, than anyone else had before. (Chamberlain now stands at No. 2 with 28.) He had more free-throw attempts than the Wizards did as a team Tuesday. He took and made more free throws than he had in almost a full month. Adebayo had never taken more than 20 free throws in a game, then he more than doubled that Tuesday.
There are those trying to undercut this 83-point accomplishment, with critiques that he managed it only by free-throw hunting or by playing unethical basketball.
But it was a performance that stood as a testament to this era of basketball. Adebayo took 22 3-pointers -- a full-scale evolution from the 6-foot-9 center who entered the NBA and took just 22 3s combined over his first two seasons. He matched that with a ruthless efficiency in getting to the rim.
He did not need much else. He did not shoot 50% from the field (20 of 43) and missed 15 of those 3s. But get to the line enough, take enough 3s, and the points start piling up. He was the first NBA player to take 30-plus free throws in a game and take 20 3s. Or 15 3s. Or 10 3s. Or five 3s. The previous high was three.
It was alchemy, and it worked. It worked over and over again.
Adebayo was amazing. He scored 31 in the first quarter, 43 by halftime and 62 at the end of the third quarter.
Then the Heat went to work in the fourth quarter to get him the ball and hammer home the point. He took 16 free throws in that final quarter. Miami kept feeding him the ball.
The Wizards tried triple-teaming him at the 3-point line and double-teaming him in the backcourt. Adebayo kept pressing the issue, driving to the rim, and the Wizards kept fouling.
If Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has earned some scorn as a foul merchant, Adebayo was just a bully against overmatched foes, with a coach and teammates who ensured he brutalized them as often as he could. Neither the Wizards nor the referees had much of a chance.
Free throws are up this season, and the league is averaging more attempts than it has in a decade. Scoring is up leaguewide at numbers not seen since Chamberlain roamed the court. And Adebayo and the Heat belabored the point against the Wizards, who might as well have been the Washington Generals and who were too overwhelmed to stop them.
The Heat kept feeding Adebayo, who kept driving and snookering Wizards into fouling him. The Heat looked for him in transition, off offensive rebounds and as soon as they could. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra, at one point in the fourth that served as a high point in NBA comedy, even challenged a play while up 25 with less than 3 minutes left to try to get Adebayo to the line again.
There is little shame in this. Maybe 83 points cannot happen organically. Maybe a night like this needs a smattering of chicanery to get it done.
Adebayo was dominant and domineering, pushing deep into the fourth quarter of a blowout to set his mark. It was a perfect storm. A player often overlooked for his offensive prowess suddenly turned into Chamberlain and laid down a James Harden-esque combination of 3s and free throws. It was a perfect game for the modern era. It was a showing that will be impossible to forget by a star who few could have predicted was capable of it.
Adebayo scored 83 points Tuesday night, surpassing Bryant and looking up to just one player in NBA history. He did it his way, and he will live on in NBA history for it.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company