{"id":659763,"date":"2026-03-15T15:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/659763\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T15:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:32:14","slug":"devin-booker-defends-bam-adebayo-from-critics-of-his-83-point-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/659763\/","title":{"rendered":"Devin Booker defends Bam Adebayo from critics of his 83-point game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bam Adebayo<\/a> scored 83 points<\/a> in a single basketball game. He passed Kobe Bryant for the second-most in NBA history, and the most ever in a game that was actually filmed. Wilt Chamberlain put up 100 before video cameras were the norm. But scoring that many points in a game did not just happen organically. The Miami Heat did everything they could to help Bam achieve history, including fouling in the closing minutes with the victory already well in hand. It has led to many people chastising the milestone, calling it an unethical achievement.<\/p>\n

Devin Booker<\/a> knows all about that.<\/p>\n

Book scored 70 back in March of 2017 at just 20 years old. Prior to Bam\u2019s performance, Booker held the top single-game scoring record of any former Kentucky player. But his big game also brought out the haters. The Phoenix Suns lost to the Boston Celtics, a major talking point for naysayers. With a horde of below-average players on the court for the Suns, Book was the primary scoring threat, and big numbers got labeled as \u201cempty calories.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about Adebayo\u2019s 83 points, Booker reflected<\/a> on the critics of his own stupendously high-scoring performance:<\/p>\n

\u201cI had 70, and I lost, and I heard all about it, but it\u2019s a conversation that\u2019s going to be there forever\u2026Some people are going to say play to the end no matter what. Some people are going to say they did it in a strange way, but that\u2019s just the world that we live in today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scoring that many points in a game is hard to do<\/p>\n

The reality is that no one scores 83 points, or even 70, completely in the flow of the game. Or ethically. Or whatever noble adjective you prefer when describing paramount sportsmanship. Sure, the Heat were force-feeding Bam the ball and fouling unnecessarily to extend the game, but the Washington Wizards were not exactly letting him score either. This was no Brett Favre falling down to give Michael Strahan a record-breaking sack<\/a> type of situation.<\/p>\n

In the closing minutes, the Wizards double-teamed Bam, tried to stop him, but their aggression often led to more fouls. Adebayo shot 36 of 43 from the free-throw line, both NBA records. Booker spoke about that, saying, \u201cI think Washington got so worked up, kind of like Boston did with me, where they fouled him on plays they really didn\u2019t need to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of the situation, scoring 83 points in an NBA basketball game is, as Book said, \u201csuper impressive.\u201d It isn\u2019t just the ability to put the ball through the net, but the stamina it takes to play that long at that high a level that is unreal. Booker called that out, saying, \u201cIf we went and played in a high school game right now [which is smaller than an NBA court], it\u2019d be hard to put up those numbers. Just the stamina to do it [is incredible].\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Wildcats are now two of the only 11 players in NBA history to score at least 70 points in a game. Regardless of the controversy now, Booker said, \u201cOne hundred years from now, that number will still be in the history books. Nobody will have anything to say about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in a single basketball game. He passed Kobe Bryant for the second-most in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[48660,7,1663,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-659763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-bam-adebayo-16-northside","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-devin-booker-14-moss-point","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-phoenix-suns","14":"tag-phoenixsuns","15":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116233922045949469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}