How Bam Adebayo really got his 83 points

It started natural in the first quarter. Middle of the floor catch, search for that mid-range jumper, before giving a bump and spinning into a shot fake to get Alex Sarr off his feet to force the shooting foul.

When a guy gets 4 straight field goals to start a game, yeah there's going to be some overreactions when he has the ball in his hands.

If you want the real reason Adebayo was able to torch this Washington Wizards defense, it had a lot to do with the foot speed advantage on the perimeter.

Back-up big Tristan Vukcevic spent a lot of time on Adebayo, and it was just a blow-by every time as Adebayo would work those catch-and-go's.

Then we got to the portion of the game where Adebayo and the Heat were able to maximize their time in the bonus. The Wizards tried to be physical off the ball to eliminate him getting any type of entry pass, but the grabbing and holding was just way past the line of marginal contact.

If you were wondering, I'm still waiting to get to a point in this game where the officials were just "gifting" Adebayo these trips to the line.

They were being generated for two reasons. Number one, the Wizards defender guarding him was either too slow or too small no matter who matched up with him 1-on-1.

And number two, Adebayo was actively attacking these mismatches and forcing the help defense to make him earn it at the line instead of getting an easy layup or dunk.

As they got into that late second quarter and second half stretch, the players fouling weren't Adebayo's assignment anymore. It was almost always the help down low.

If Adebayo is pulling the opposing big out to the perimeter and blowing past, it's a constant cycle of 5-on-4's with the help being smaller guards waiting inside.

He rises over Will Riley waiting in the paint, as Sarr sprints from the weak-side corner to try and put an end to this. He instead fouls him again, while Adebayo converts the tough layup anyway.

Other than the occassional doubles, the first real adjustment of the night when it came to defending Adebayo happened with 3 minutes left in the third quarter.

If you were wondering, he had 57 points at that time.

After cooking all their bigs, Washington threw 6'6 small forward Justin Champagnie on Adebayo to eliminate the quickness advantage he was banking on all night.

But an undersized match-up just leads to more physicality, and you guessed it, more fouls.

Adebayo got him down to the paint, spun inside, and went to his dominant hand for a push shot before Champagnie made contact on his shooting arm.

Still trying to figure out why the free throws are being used to down-play this performance. If anything it's more impressive that he was that much of a living mismatch that the Wizards defense had no other choice but to hammer him across the arm time and time again.

Catch. Attack. Bump. Foul. Repeat.

This wasn't foul baiting. These weren't rip through manipulations. It wasn't even him playing for a foul.

They just continued to happen time and time again as Adebayo flowed downhill consistently into a pile of traffic that consequently had no defensive plan.

It began to look like a battle you see at football practice between a left tackle and a defensive end. They tried to eliminate his catches by fully holding and grabbing him as he tried to find open off-ball space.

As I continue through these different foul calls, I'm still actively searching for the time stamp of this game that should leave this performance with an asterisk.

So finally we get to the portion of the game that some publicly are upset with.

Leading by 25 points, the Heat were intentionally fouling the Wizards to get the ball back and get Adebayo over that 81 point record.

So because Adebayo and the Heat were pushing hard for this record at the finish line, we are just going to forget about the 79 points that came before this point?

I'd like to find one athlete in any sport that wouldn't do this same exact thing. This isn't a franchise record. Or even a small NBA record. This is the mountain top that anybody in sports would only dream of achieving.

Down the line, nobody will remember this discourse. Nobody will remember the fake narratives. Nobody will remember the free throw attempts.

What will be remembered is that Bam Adebayo's name is stamped at the top of a list with Wilt Chamberlain and there's film as proof to back it all up.