The NBA has been a home to some of the greatest scorers in basketball. Here are the five best individual scoring performances in the NBA.
Follow Us
The NBA has been home to some of the greatest basketball players in the history of the game. Some of the greatest players like Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James have all stepped foot on the NBA court and showed their brilliance. Throughout its rich history of 75 years, the league has seen some great performances.
One of the most important aspects of basketball is scoring. In the NBA, scoring is not always an easy thing to do as defenders are physical and the rules make it tough for players to attack the rim. However, some all-time great players have found their way through these difficulties and scored plenty of points. In today’s article, we talk about five of the highest-scoring individual performances in an NBA game.
Wilt Chamberlain is the only name that will appear three times on this list. The two-time NBA champion appears on every record when it comes to scoring. His ability to dominate his opponents with ease helped him score 31, 419 points in his career.
In one of the games against the New York Knicks, Wilt Chamberlain showed the world what it was like when he got going. The big man scored 73 points on 67.4% shooting from the field. He also grabbed 14 rebounds in the game to help the San Fransico Warriors to a 127-111 win on the night. This was his second game scoring 73 points in an NBA game.
David Thompson is a name that not many expected to be on this list. However, he was one of the most underrated scorers of his generation. Thompson was in a battle to win the scoring title during the 1977-78 season. That was when he racked up 73 points against the Detroit Pistons on April 9, 1978. However, his efforts neither helped him win the game for the team nor the scoring title. Later on the same day, George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs scored 63 points to take the scoring title by a small margin.
Wilt Chamberlain did not fear any opponent in front of him. His stellar outing against the LA Lakers during the 1961-62 season was a testament to that. The big man scored 78 points and bagged a jaw-dropping 43 rebounds for the Philadelphia Warriors. Many would expect that it would be enough for the team to bag a win, but he was up against a talented Lakers side. Elgin Baylor and Jerry West combined to score 95 points to help the Lakers get to a 151-147 win on the night. Despite the defeat, his performance was one of the best individual performances for any player in NBA history.
Kobe Bryant is the only name from the modern era that appears to be this high on the list. Such was the brilliance that he displayed every time he took the floor. The Black Mamba had multiple ways through which he scored the basketball. In his 20 seasons in the league, Bryant won two scoring titles. One of them came during the 2005-06 season. It was a special year for Kobe as it also included a game where he scored 81 points over the Toronto Raptors. Kobe shot 28-46 from the field and looked unstoppable at a point. His brilliant individual display shocked everyone in the league as it was one of the greatest scoring outbursts anyone had seen in a while.
The evening on March 2, 1962, was one of the most iconic ones in the NBA. It was the first time that a player scored in triple figures and it was done by a dominant force named Wilt Chamberlain. The Hall of Famer scored 100 points and shot 36-63 from the field. He also grabbed 25 rebounds to further ease things for the Philadelphia Warriors as they grabbed a 169-147 win over the Knicks.
