Mike Breen has called enough NBA games to know when the moment is bigger than the argument around it.
By Wednesday morning, there was plenty of argument to respond to. Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night, and by the time the next morning’s shows went on air, sports media had largely decided the number didn’t mean what it looked like. Chris Russo went on First Take and spent several minutes on the 43 free throws, the 7-of-22 from three, Erik Spoelstra fouling the Wizards while up 40 to get his guy more touches, calling the whole operation “a complete disgrace” and volunteering that Pat Riley probably agreed even if he’d never say so. The Indianapolis Star‘s Gregg Doyel wrote about how the achievement required a certain level of “ugliness.” The Athletic’s Sam Amick argued Adebayo owed it to Kobe Bryant to stop at 81. A Los Angeles Times columnist booed him in the actual headline. And as our own Sean Keely acknowledged in his write-up, plenty of NBA podcasters and content creators grabbed their pitchforks.
Not everyone spent Wednesday reaching for an asterisk, though. Breen — the voice of the NBA on ABC and ESPN — pushed back, and not just on the specific criticisms. He pushed back on the impulse underneath all of them.
“You know what? People love to be outraged. That’s just what it is today,” Breen said. “I can understand on one side that it was made a mockery of down the stretch in the way they went about doing it. It’s not the normal thing you see in an NBA game. But the other thing about Adebayo is that this is a guy who represents the very best of the NBA: the way he carries himself, the kind of teammate he is, the work ethic that he has. He’s been nothing but a great ambassador for the NBA, a high-character individual, and his story is amazing. So for him to have a special night like that and the Miami Heat fans to have, I thought that was wonderful, too. Both sides are correct points. I’m not trying to cop out by saying they’re both right, but sometimes there’s a gray area in there. Not everything’s definitive, and we don’t have to be outraged by everything.”
Mike Breen on Bam’s 83 “You know what? People love to be outraged. That’s just what it is today. I can understand…it was made a mockery down the stretch…not the normal thing you see in an NBA game. [But] this is a guy who represents the very best of the NBA, the way he carries… pic.twitter.com/DYJlzVb7Q7
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) March 12, 2026
That’s probably the most reasonable thing anyone in sports media said on the subject.
Adebayo entered Tuesday’s game against Washington, averaging 18 points a night with a career high of 41. Nobody had him on their bingo card for second-most points in NBA history. The final stretch was ugly, and the criticism wasn’t entirely wrong. But Adebayo had 62 points through three quarters. He had 31 in the first. The record he broke, Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006, came against a bad Raptors team and had its own questions about how it unfolded. The record Chamberlain set in 1962, which still stands above both of them, had even more. That’s how these things go.
Breen said as much. Not everyone listened.