MIAMI — Bam Adebayo achieved his personal best scoring performance in an NBA match on Tuesday evening.
Remarkably, he reached this milestone in just the initial half of the game.
Adebayo accumulated 31 points during the first quarter versus the Washington Wizards, establishing a new Miami Heat benchmark for scoring in any single quarter, and simultaneously equaling the franchise record for points in a first half, all before the second quarter had commenced.
He concluded the half with a total of 43 points, which stands as a team record for any half and surpassed his prior career-best (for an entire game) of 41 points by two, a record he had established on January 23, 2021, when playing against Brooklyn.
His shooting statistics for the first half included converting 13 of 24 field goal attempts, 12 of 14 free throws, and 5 of 11 shots from beyond the arc. Per findings by ESPN Research, he is the initial player to achieve at least 12 successful field goals, 12 free throws, and five three-pointers in a single half since Kobe Bryant accomplished this feat (with 18, 13, and six, respectively) during the second half of his historic 81-point performance against the Raptors on January 22, 2006.
Prior to Tuesday, Adebayo’s season’s highest point total was 32. He equaled this figure by making a free throw with 5 minutes and 53 seconds remaining in the second quarter, subsequently surpassing the Heat’s first-half scoring record.
His 31-point quarter represented the National Basketball Association’s most prolific scoring quarter since Karl-Anthony Towns posted 32 points for Minnesota during the third quarter of a game played in San Antonio on March 14, 2022.
Apart from Towns and now Adebayo, merely three other athletes over the last three decades have registered a minimum of 31 points within a single quarter: Klay Thompson established an NBA record for any quarter with 37 points in 2015; Kevin Love scored 34 points for Cleveland in 2016; and Carmelo Anthony tallied 33 points for Denver in 2008.
The prior Heat franchise record for points accumulated in a first quarter stood at 25, achieved by LeBron James while playing in Cleveland on March 18, 2014. James also accounted for the sole other instance of a 25-point quarter in Heat chronicles, occurring as a segment of his team-record 61-point performance versus Charlotte on March 3, 2014.
Adebayo’s 43-point showing in the initial half represented the NBA’s second-highest output in at least the last three decades, tracing back to the commencement of the digital play-by-play period which began during the 1996-97 season.
Towns had previously posted 44 points for Minnesota when playing against Charlotte on January 22, 2024.
The all-time NBA record for points scored in a first half is 53, a mark jointly held by David Thompson of Denver and George Gervin of San Antonio. They notably achieved this on the identical date: April 9, 1978. This occasion marked the concluding day of that particular regular season, when these two players competed (though in distinct matchups) for the determination of the league’s scoring championship.
Information from The Associated Press was included in this article.
