Three-time All-Star Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo has had something of a quiet season toiling away on a South Beach squad with middling playoff prospects. He missed out on making an All-Star team this year, and his scoring bag had appeared to regress a bit.
But that all changed on Tuesday night.
The five-time All-Defensive Teamer exploded for an absolutely insane 83-point scoring outburst in a 150-129 blowout of the Washington Wizards, extending Miami’s current win streak to six games in the process. He also chipped in nine points and three assists.
Adebayo Makes NBA History
That sum ranks as the second-best single-game scoring total ever, surpassing Los Angeles Lakers Hall of Fame shooting guard Kobe Bryant’s 81 points scored against the Toronto Raptors in 2005. Adebayo trails only then-Philadelphia Warriors superstar center Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 in 1962.
Adebayo, never a strong 3-point shooter, heaved 22 attempts from that range (the third-most tries from deep ever in an NBA game), making seven (31.8 percent). He finished with 20-of-43 shooting from the floor and a 2006 Finals Dwayne Wade-esque 36-of-43 shooting from the charity stripe. No other Heat player had more than five free throw attempts or more than nine field goal looks, as the team almost exclusively fed him after an insane 31-point first quarter.
He broke Bryant’s record, fittingly enough, at the charity stripe.
Bam Adebayo. 83 points.
Passes Kobe Bryant for second-most in a game in NBA history.pic.twitter.com/BwCdHP1ZK5
— Underdog NBA (@UnderdogNBA) March 11, 2026
It should be noted that Adebayo had been averaging just 4.8 takes at the foul line this season ahead of Tuesday’s game, per Bobby Marks of ESPN.
Did Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra pad Adebayo’s stats a bit by leaving him in the game very, very late into an obvious blowout? Sure. Was the 28-year-old perhaps doing too much in bringing up the ball and trying to score out of double- and triple-team coverages in the paint? Maybe. Did he take and make more free throws than any other player in league history? Yes.
Are his 83 points truly more valuable than, say, David Thompson’s 73 scored in 1978, David Robinson’s 71 in 1994, or Michael Jordan’s 69 in 1990? All those stars were playing against stiffer defensive competition than this miserable Washington squad, which is sitting stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis in a blatant tank ahead of the 2026 NBA Draft and a promised Adam Silver rules change.
But that shouldn’t really matter. Ultimately, it’s still a remarkable achievement for a player who’s still trying to define himself after the end of the Jimmy Butler era.
While our Chicago Bulls look to lose on purpose against the Golden State Warriors on the other side of the country, the Heat are taking a different approach to their own on-the-fly personnel retool, putting one a franchise player in position to succeed.
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