Most Points Scored in an NBA Game: The 15 Best Performances

There’s no video footage, only a partial audio recording of the fourth quarter of one of the greatest feats in NBA history. 

On March 2, 1962, with only 4,124 spectators in attendance, Wilt Chamberlain scored an NBA-record 100 points in a single game for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

After the game, Chamberlain was famously photographed sitting in the locker room holding up a paper with "100" scribbled on it. His feat has stood for over six decades and has never been challenged.  

The Big Dipper dropped 23 points in the first quarter, 18 in the second, 28 in the third and 31 in the fourth. He shot 36-of-63 (57.1%) from the field and 28-of-32 (87.5%) from the free throw line despite being a career 51.1% foul shooter. He added 25 rebounds and two assists while playing all 48 minutes. 

His performance was even more remarkable given that there was no 3-point line; the NBA didn't add that until the 1979-80 season.

In the 1961-62 season, Chamberlain averaged 50.4 points per game, another record that likely will never be broken.

The second-most points in a game is 81, accomplished by Kobe Bryant in 2006. 

The record for most points in an NBA playoff game is held by none other than Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls legend scored 63 points in a double-overtime loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the 1986 first round — a feat that Larry Bird described as “God disguised as Michael Jordan.” Jordan broke Elgin Baylor's single-game record — a 61-point performance for the Los Angeles Lakers in a win over the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the 1962 NBA Finals — that had stood for 24 years. Jordan and Baylor are the only two players to score 60 or more points in a playoff game.