Earlier this week, Bam Adebayo flipped the NBA world upside down with his 83-point performance. His incredible offensive explosion surpassed Kobe Bryant’s long-standing 81-point mark for the second-most points in a single game. The reaction to this has mostly on the spectrum of shock and awe. However, former NBA player Rashad McCants, there’s an old method to this madness.
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Every record ever made will be broken at some point by someone; we can all be in agreement over that . Nobody thought a team could finish a season greater than 72-10, and then we saw a 73-9 season. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record seemed etched in stone for decades, then LeBron James moved past it in the twilight of his career.
It was only a matter of time before someone eclipsed Kobe’s 81 points as well, but Adebayo was not the man that fans or analysts would have put their money on.
Within the past few seasons, many players like Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell have reached the 70-point mark. Although they always came short of the record, they all have one thing in common. All of them irrefutable reputations as scorers. Adebayo, on the other hand, is most known for his defensive abilities.
Regardless, we saw Adebayo dominate in every single quarter. McCants watched the Miami Heat star’s performance closely and noticed that he was able to master the recipe for having a high-scoring game.
“Get these numbers every quarter. No threes, no free throws. You’re guaranteed these points. Now then, you put that in, I can get 81,” McCants saidin an appearance on the Out the Mud podcast.
That quote went viral on social media, with many people criticizing McCants for being too liberal with that complement. However, it turns out his comments have aged like wine. In an exclusive interview with The SportsRush’s Nickeem Khan, McCants doubled down on his scoring philosophy.
“There is a formula,” McCants declared. “Especially, when it comes to points per quarter, stopping the clock, shooting threes. Kobe Bryant knew this formula. He could have gotten at least 120, 130 points in a game if he wanted to.”
At face value, scoring 30 points, let alone 20 points in a quarter, appears incredibly daunting even for someone like Kobe Bryant. However, another way of looking at it is three layups, two three-pointers and four free throws is 16 points, and suddenly, the math looks a lot simpler.
Of course, great defensive teams make high scoring performances like Adebayo and Bryant’s difficult. But there will be games where the opportunity presents itself, and McCants doesn’t fault Bam for taking advantage of it.
“Bam took advantage of the opportunity to go ahead and surpass it. Cemented history by doing so,” McCants added.
It seemed that it would be another age before Bryant’s 81-point performance was trumped, but evidently, that was a mistake. Perhaps, the likelihood of someone reaching the 100-point mark may not be as far off as we have come to believe.
