No, that’s not a typo. Bam Adebayo really did score 83 points in a game. On Tuesday, March 10, 2026, Adebayo scored 83 points, passing Kobe Bryant’s 81 points as the second all-time single-game scoring leader in the NBA. This comes as only the third time ever that a professional basketball player has scored 80 points in a game. The most all-time points were scored in a game on March 2, 1962, when Wilt Chamberlain reached 100 points.
Edrice “Bam” Adebayo is a center for the Miami Heat. Adebayo played college ball at the University of Kentucky for one year before he was drafted by Miami in 2017. He has accumulated many career accolades during his time in Miami, including being a three-time NBA All-Star, winning the Eastern Conference Finals twice and making the All-Defensive First Team in 2024. Adebayo has also racked up two Olympic gold medals in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Even though he has many accomplishments, nobody expected this out of him. Adebayo averaged less than 20 points a game before this night. In Miami’s previous outing against the Detroit Pistons, Adebayo only scored 24 points. With such low numbers, many would have expected a big game to come from many other superstars across the league.
Junior Elliot Bodart explained who he would have guessed to break out: “I would have thought somebody like Cade Cunningham might have done that.”
Adebayo’s career high before this game was 41 points. He broke this by halftime. When the clock hit zero at the end of the second quarter, Adebayo already had 43 points. Adebayo scored 40 in the second half to eclipse Bryant’s 81 and to finish at 83. The previous season high across the league belonged to Nikola Jokić, who scored 56 on Christmas Day. Adebayo passed this by the end of the third quarter when he had 62. Another mark that Adebayo passed by the end of the third was the Miami Heat’s franchise record that was set by LeBron James. James scored 61 in March 2014.
Adebayo’s percentage numbers on this night may not have been earth-shattering, as he was 20/43 from the floor, including a 7/22 outing from beyond the arc, but this can be attributed to the Wizards starting to double-and triple-team him, as well as him pulling up from deep where he normally wouldn’t shoot as much. The biggest black mark that some may put on Adebayo’s outing was his 43 trips to the free-throw line. He was 36/43 from the charity stripe. Even though some may use these numbers to put his night down, Adebayo still scored 83 and will still be second all-time.
This game is sure to be remembered for decades and decades to come.
“My phone was going off, so I turned it on and was watching when he passed Kobe,” Senior and Heat fan Matthew Berton recalled about what he was doing when this happened.
So the question remains for all the fans of the NBA or even those beyond: where were you?
