Will we ever see an 81-point game again?
Will we ever see an 81-point game again?
15/02/2026
You may be asking why I am picking this particular number of points and why not the 100-point game as it is the NBA record. Only because I don’t believe that the current state of NBA basketball can produce such a monstrous player to actually break Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point show in the 60’s.
But there is one legendary player named Kobe Bryant who somehow put up the second biggest point scoring performance 20 years ago.
It was January 22nd, 2006. The Lakers were preparing for their home game against the Toronto Raptors in Staples Center. Their leader in the name of Kobe Bryant was just balling in the last 10 games…41.9 point per game. People’s expectations were high regarding this game and only questions were if Kobe could score another 50-point performance. Guess what? He not only scored 50, not 60, not 70, but 81 points. Kobe attempted 46 shots and made 60.9% of them, 7 out of 13 from the three-point line (54%), and 18 out of 20 from the free throw line. And not a single one of these stat lines are his career highest, but all of them together just make this performance unforgettable and possible. It is notable that this game happened in the infamous “Dead Ball Era”, where the basketball was more defense centric and it produced the lowest scoring seasons ever in the NBA, and Kobe still did the impossible and made the second biggest scoring performance in the NBA history. Imagine the potential of all his career highs got combined in a single game? I imagined and took my calculator…and this measurement is highly doubtable as being possible, but let’s just imagine statistically the most perfect game, only including career game highs from Kobe Bryant. Twelve three pointers, 21 2-pointers and 23 free throws make a total of…101 points. Only one point above Wilt’s 100-point performance.
NBA has the scorers to pull off this feat. Luka Doncic, Shai, even Anthony Edwards. Wemby scored 25 points in the first 8 minutes of the game, on this theoretical pace it could easily be a 90+ point game. Luka already has the 4th best scoring performance in the history of NBA - 73 points on 26th of January 2024 against the Atlanta Hawks, so no wonder if he can do it again. Edwards is a pure scorer, just needs the stars to align for the one big game. And what stars exactly are we even talking about? The ones that predict the outcomes of the game, all the circumstances that need to line up for the biggest scoring game ever. And I think there are 3 crucial ones…
Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Load management. The days were players play full 48-minute games are long gone. The average time on court for great players is around 36-minute mark, so basically 3 full quarters or 75% of the whole game. One of the best examples of great scoring performances is Klay Thompson with 60 points against Indiana Pacers on December 5th, 2016. He was on spectacular pace to score at least 80 points, having a 79% True Shooting percentage and had 60 points at the end of 3rd quarter after 29 minutes on the court. For the 4th quarter Steve Kerr took of Thompson and other Golden State leaders for “garbage time” players and Klay never stepped on the court again that game, only because Golden State were up 33 points after the 3rd quarter. This leads us to the next crucial part to break records…
Close game. If Golden State and Pacers game would have been closer, there would be a massively greater chance that Klay Thompson wouldn’t have been taken off the court and scored at least 80 points. In Luka Doncic’s 73-point game he played for 44 minutes and 43 seconds. 3 minutes and 17 seconds to take a breath and drink up. Because this game finally was a close one, a real chance for a record-breaking performance. But then it became too close? Yes, the Hawks actually stepped up defensively in 4th quarter and really tried to stop Luka from scoring, because they were close to the win themselves. Also, late-game fouling can help to boost the score.
Efficiency. This is an easy one on paper - just play the whole game, don’t miss, don’t foul and keep consistent. In reality this is the hardest part of scoring massive amounts of points in a single game. Players need rest, fatigue starts to creep in after 3 full quarters of balling around. And if the other team knows that you have 60 points, they are definitely going to press you up. Not even Kobe’s game was consistent, he scored only 26 points in 1st half and Lakers were trailing by 14 points. Kobe locked in for the 2nd half to pull his team back and scored 27 in 3rd quarter alone. Doncic’s game against Hawks was actually very consistent and linear until the last quarter when Hawks didn’t let him shoot as much as in 1st half. If you think about it then Luka was just 3 or 4 successful possessions away from at least repeating Kobe’s feat.
There is always that one star that aligns on its own…luck. These are the games we should enjoy watching of the beautiful sport of basketball, because you never know what will happen next game. Maybe Wemby will show us some alien performances in the next game or maybe Luka will channel his inner Kobe and demonstrate a monstrous scoring night once again.
endlessbender Uploaded by JoeJohnson2, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It is a cruel paradox: the easier the opponent, the more likely a coach pulls you early. Harder the opponent, the more defensive resistance limits scoring.
