The Miami Heat big man dropped 83 points on the Washington Wizards to surpass Kobe Bryant for the second-highest-scoring performance in the history of the league, trailing only Wilt Chamberlain and his legendary 100-point performance.
However, Adebayo drew some mockery and criticism on social media for the way he got his 83 points. The Heat kept trying to get him more opportunities to score in a 20-point blowout, to the point where they were literally fouling the Wizards to get the ball back.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, and 83 points is still historically great, even Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick had to say something about it.
JJ Redick reacts to Bam Adebayo’s historic performance
“It’s incredible what he was able to do,” Redick said per Carlos Yakimowich of the Sporting Tribune. “I walked in and I saw the score, and he (Bam) was at the free-throw line, and I saw the score, and they’ve been playing great basketball lately. I said to my coaching staff, ‘oh, they’re rolling.’ They all kind of looked at each other, and they’re like, ‘are you kidding right now?’
And I’m like, ‘no, what’s up?’…They’re like, ‘Bam has 77.’ And then I watched the last three minutes, and that was a different type of basketball,” Redick continued.
Adebayo kept pushing and pushing to score on every drive, even in the final seconds when the game was already out of reach.
Again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and the only way to prevent that type of breakout scoring performance is to actually play some defense.
At the end of the day, people won’t remember whether Adebayo set a record for free throws made (36) and attempted (43).
They won’t even remember whether the Heat won or lost that game, the same way most forget that Kobe Bryant’s 81-point explosion came in an 18-point comeback or how he subbed himself out of a game with 62 points in the third quarter just days before that.
History is history, and no amount of nitpicking will change what Adebayo accomplished.
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