Luka Doncic Posts Fourth Best Single-Game Scoring Performance in NBA History, Devin Booker Logs Second 60 Point Game of His Career
Just four days after Joel Embiid joined the 70 point club and Karl-Anthony Towns had the second 60 point game of his career, Luka Doncic scored 73 points as his Dallas Mavericks defeated the Atlanta Hawks, 148-143. Doncic tied Wilt Chamberlain and David Thompson for the fourth highest scoring game in ABA/NBA history, trailing only Chamberlain's 100 point game, Kobe Bryant's 81 point game, and Chamberlain's 78 point game. Doncic shot 25-33 from the field and 15-16 from the free throw line, but what is most striking is his 17-20 field goal shooting from inside the arc. Yes, Doncic shot .850 on his two point field goal attempts! A cardinal defensive principle in basketball is to not allow straight line drives to the hoop, but the Hawks offered little to no resistance as Doncic repeatedly drove straight to the basket. Michael Jordan would have scored 90 or 100 points against that type of defense; that may sound like hyperbole, but if you watched Jordan play then you know it is true. Jordan attacked the hoop relentlessly during an era when the game was much more physical.
Doncic stole the headlines from Devin Booker, who scored 62 points as his Phoenix Suns lost to the Indiana Pacers, 133-131. Booker now has two 60 point games during his career. Until 1988, pro basketball's 60 Point Club had only two members who had logged more than one 60 point game: Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Jordan finished his career with four 60 point games (plus his 63 point playoff game, which is still the record for the postseason). After Jordan, the next player who had more than one 60 point game is Bryant, whose six such games trail only Chamberlain's 32(!) on the all-time list.
Baylor, Chamberlain, Jordan, and Bryant are Pantheon-level players. Here are the players who have had at least two 60 point games post-Bryant: Damian Lillard (five), James Harden (four), Karl Anthony-Towns (two), Luka Doncic (two), and Devin Booker (two). With all due respect to that quintet, those players are not close to the level--as scorers, let alone as all-around players--of Baylor, Chamberlain, Jordan, and Bryant.
The 70 Point Club has experienced a similar significant expansion. After Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points in a game last season, I wrote, "Not counting Chamberlain--whose name dominates the NBA record book--the NBA has seen less than one 70 point game per decade, so even in this era when it is easier to score than ever it may take 10 years before anyone matches what Mitchell did last night." Instead of taking a decade for someone to match Mitchell's feat, Damian Lillard scored 71 points in a game less than two months later, and now Doncic has topped both players with his 73 point explosion.
Lillard and Mitchell are both very good players, and Doncic is a great player, but the 70 Point Club used to be reserved for the all-time greats, not the "very good" and not the "great." Elgin Baylor founded the 70 Point Club on November 15, 1960 when he scored 71 points versus the New York Knicks. Baylor's record did not stand for long, as Chamberlain had six 70 point games from 1961-63, five of which topped Baylor's 71 point game. The only 70 point games from 1964-2006 were authored by David Thompson, David Robinson, and Kobe Bryant. No one scored 70 points in a game from 2007-2016, but from 2017-2024 Booker, Mitchell, Lillard, Embiid, and Doncic have done it.
Baylor, Chamberlain, and Bryant are in the Pantheon. Thompson arguably had Pantheon-level talent, and he still had a Hall of Fame career despite battling drug addiction. Robinson is no worse than top 30-35 all-time. Would any informed NBA observer make the argument that Booker, Mitchell, Lillard, Embiid, and Doncic belong in such a group? Maybe Embiid or Doncic have a chance to elevate themselves to such lofty heights, but they are not there yet.
Regular season NBA games are starting to resemble the NBA All-Star Game in terms of lack of defense/lack of competitive effort, and last year's NBA All-Star Game may have been the worst basketball game ever. Prior to Monday, there had been one day in ABA/NBA history during which two players had 60 point games--and now that has happened twice in five days. Pointing out such facts is not "hating." The NBA powers that be have drastically altered the game, and not for the better: instead of featuring the best athletes in the world competing at the highest level, the NBA has degenerated into a glorified skills exhibition. I have attended dozens if not hundreds of NBA games in person as a credentialed media member or as a fan, and I have seen firsthand that even "non shooters" in the NBA can shoot an absurd percentage on uncontested warmup shots; this helped me to understand how great NBA defense is (or was). With all due respect to Doncic, in his 73 point game he shot .850 from the field on shots that were not much more difficult than warmup shots.
The modern NBA has lowered the bar competitively, which devalues each game and cheapens the record book.
Labels: Damian Lillard, David Robinson, David Thompson, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Elgin Baylor, Joel Embiid, Kobe Bryant, Luka Doncic, Wilt Chamberlain
posted by David Friedman @ 4:16 PM
17 Comments:
I was reading your post and thinking about how every year for the last few we have discussed how the abandonment of any pretense to take the All Star Game seriously is not going to stay contained to the ASG, and eventually the regular season will degenerate the same way too.
And then you finished your article with that exact same observation.
Sometimes I really hate being right about things...
But it will probably get worse -- the ASG was never fixed. Instead they tried doing format change gimmicks, but that only made things worse.
Same thing is happening with the regular season now -- play-in tournament, in-season tournament. Not only don't these things fix the problem, they only further devalue the regular season.
So I expect things to only degenerate further for quite a while. Hopefully the league will turn it around at some point, but right now it is headed towards becoming more like the WWE than a real sports organization.
Adam Silver will go down in history as an absolutely disastrous commissioner. Sure, it isn't all on him, a lot of this is because of broader long-term trends, in the wider society too, and the owners share much of the blame. But still. Fixing the rules and telling the refs to go back to serious basketball officiating should be in his power to do...
Anonymous:
I agree with you that there is little consolation in being right when one fervently hopes to be wrong. I hoped that the negative trends would reverse, but that has not happened yet.
The NBA game is often unwatchable, and I never thought that I would say that. I have been a basketball fan for almost my entire life, and it is very sad to see how the game has devolved--and it is puzzling that so many people (including people who should know better) think that the game has evolved.
Athletic ability and the possession of some basketball skills--such as long range shooting--do not substitute for competitiveness and basketball IQ. The Golden State Warriors rank fourth in three point field goals made this season, but they have a lousy record because they are terrible defensively. Golden State's first championship team in the Stephen Curry era ranked first in defensive field goal percentage; without a defensive framework around him, Curry--despite his gaudy numbers--is struggling to lead the Warriors to a .500 record.
My point is not to single out Curry, but to emphasize that time-tested basketball truths are still true: size matters and defense matters. Despite all of the hype about the "three point revolution," "small ball," and "advanced basketball statistics" look closely at the teams that win NBA titles, and those teams still defend and--with the exception of the 2022 Warriors--those teams still use size to their advantage. The 2022 Warriors were not big, but they played ferocious defense and they did not face the larger Lakers or Bucks, or even a full-strength Nuggets--and the Celtics team that they faced in the NBA Finals did not fully exploit their size advantage.
A few thoughts I had:
Do you think it is also that these players are trying to score big in a way that didn’t occur in times past? I was surprised to see that KD for example hasn’t notched many big scoring games, because I think he is a better scorer than any of the above. Maybe he doesn’t want to?
I was also listening to the commentators (I can’t remember who), and one made a point during one of the big recent games that people should be left in when they have big scoring games. I think they were talking about KAT who got put on the bench. They even made the point that it was always thus, seeming to forget Kobe for example sitting on the bench with 60 something against Dallas.
Is it just the new school pushing for big individual numbers as much as it is the lack of. D?
I think it's a jealousy thing when big scoring games happen so closely to each other. James has tried similar things recently after Kobe had big games in the past.
These types of games especially for less lethal scorers but even for the very best scorers are kinda 'hot hand' situations, or hunting for something like a scoring record or James trying to make a point, or Kobe's last game, etc.
KAT wasn't benched. He missed a 3 to tie the game. He played 38 minutes. He's only had 2 games over 38 minutes this season, and one of those was in OT.
Anonymous:
It is possible that today's players are stat-chasing more than players from the past did, but I recall Larry Bird's Celtics intentionally fouling when the outcome of the game was decided (in the Celtics' favor) just to get more possessions so Bird could score 60 points. That story is not often told because it doesn't align with how Bird is portrayed by most media members--as a pass-first player who did not care about his stats in general or scoring in particular.
I don't have a problem with a player staying in a game to score more points to chase a record, as long as this is done organically: staying in the game is fine, but intentionally fouling when that is not needed to try to win the game is crass; perhaps the one caveat to that is that in Wilt's 100 point game the opposing team intentionally fouled other players to keep the ball away from Wilt, and then Wilt's team "retaliated" by intentionally fouling to get the ball back: because the opposing team "started it" (by playing in an unusual way), I don't have a problem with Wilt's team "retaliating." If both teams had played normally, Wilt would have scored 100 points anyway.
As you noted, Kobe sat out more than once in games during which he could have organically scored 70 or even 80 points.
Right, there's almost always something left out of any story by almost all reporters. But, then again, you can't include every little detail or fact in a story either.
Not to argue Wilt wouldn't have scored 100 points anyway, which is a separate issue. But was Wilt's teams force feeding him the ball more than usual in his 100-point game? Yes, probably. But, what do you think a team should do when an opposing player has 70, then 80, then 90 points? Well, he's the primary reason why you're losing, so keep the ball away from him sounds like the best available option. There's different ways to try to do this, but fouling other players is one way. The Knicks fouled 32x that game, 6x more than their season average. The Warriors fouled 25x, which was their season average. So, the amount of fouls that game was marginally more than both teams averages, and I'd suspect Warriors opponents that season fouled more than their averages vs the Warriors overall.
If the game is in hand and a team is obviously leaving in their best player/players to obtain certain stats(this happens today too), then if I was on the opposing team I'd probably take an issue with this and try to prevent such player/players from obtaining these goals. So, I'm not convinced the Knicks were the instigators with anything.
Anonymous:
My point is that many media members deliberately include or exclude certain details to make their stories fit into preferred narratives such as "Bird was unselfish," "Kobe was a gunner," "LeBron is a pass-first player," etc. "Every little detail" cannot be included, but if the context of how one player scored 60 points is important then the context should be important for each such game.
It is not hard to find published accounts of Wilt's 100 point game that note that in the final six minutes the Knicks stalled on offense and fouled non-Wilt players on defense. Those are not the strategies that a team would use to make up a deficit. If anything, the Knicks should have fouled Wilt, who was a notoriously poor free throw shooter (though he shot free throws well during his 100 point game). The total number of fouls committed or the teams' average fouls per game are not relevant; I am referring to how the Knicks played in the last few minutes, and how the Warriors countered that. Once the Knicks switched from trying to win to trying to stop Wilt from scoring 100, I am OK with the Warriors focusing on trying to help Wilt score 100. To me, that is different than the Warriors going out of their way to get 100 points for Wilt in a blowout during which the Knicks are playing normally.
David:
"That story is not often told because it doesn't align with how Bird is portrayed by most media members--as a pass-first player who did not care about his stats in general or scoring in particular."
Speaking to this, I watched a game versus the Detroit Pistons on YouTube from the classic 1986 Celtics season and in one of the pregame interviews, Bird bluntly says he was chasing triple doubles in order to liven up the monotony of a season with so many blowouts.
I do tend to think that Bird was a more unselfish player than not but it would be amusing to see how his very honest candor would have served him in the social media era.
Keith:
When Bird played on the road, he openly asked what the arena scoring record was so that he could try to break it. I am not saying that Bird was wrong to chase scoring records or triple doubles; I am pointing out that media members construct narratives about players ("Unselfish Bird," "Selfish Kobe," "Pass-first LeBron") and then ignore any facts that contradict their narratives. The great player from the 1980s who probably cared less about his individual statistics than any other great player was Julius Erving, and there are documented stories going back to his college days reflecting how little he cared about setting records that he could have easily set; Erving focused on team success, and on making his teammates feel important. He was more unselfish than many players who averaged twice as many apg as he did. The only record that I ever saw Erving chase was 30,000 career points; if he had not suffered an injury during his final season, he would have cruised past that milestone, but by the end of the season it looked like he might fall short--until he scored a season-high 38 points versus the Indiana Pacers. He probably could have gone for 50 that night, or at least threatened his NBA single-game career high of 45, but he only needed 36 to surpass 30,000. Even when he had his best scoring seasons as a young player in the ABA, he always talked about his preference to reduce his scoring and get his teammates involved. When the 76ers told Erving that they preferred that he, McGinnis, and Collins each average around 20 ppg instead of having Erving average 30 ppg, he willingly complied. How many great players would do that without complaint, and then lead the team to the NBA Finals?
Erving was near the end of his career when the NBA first started to gain national and international prominence, so the league focused on marketing Bird and Magic--to the extent that many fans don't even realize how much impact Erving had on carrying the league from the 1970s into the 1980s before Bird and Magic picked up the torch.
Again, I am not knocking Bird. I am pointing out the glaring flaws in the media coverage of the NBA going back several decades.
What I'm saying there's other factors involved. Wilt just being in the game in the last few minutes of a blowout could be viewed as a farce as well as he/his teammates trying to get every last point out of him to get to 100. The Knicks saw that and countered. The total fouls in the game are relevant as they indicate that the game wasn't exactly a farce except maybe the last 2-3 minutes or so. Both teams contributed to it. When a game is a blowout and the outcome is not in doubt, wouldn't you think losing side would want to limit the winning side from achieving certain goals especially when they seem unorganically? This is only a natural reaction, and nobody could blame the Knicks if they did this, especially when the Warriors kept Wilt in the game and are obviously trying to get him to score as much as possible.
Anonymous:
Wilt typically played all 48 minutes, regardless of the score. It was not unusual for him to be in the game.
Total fouls in the game matter in the context of our conversation because I never said that the whole game was a farce; I specifically said that the Knicks started intentionally fouling players other than Wilt only in the last few minutes. The game had been played normally by both teams up to that point. As I mentioned, this is easy to verify by reading published accounts of the game.
My point is that if Wilt's team had started intentionally fouling just to create more possessions so that Wilt could score 100 then I would not approve--but Wilt's team was playing normally until the Knicks started (1) stalling on offense even though they were losing and (2) fouling players other than Wilt so that Wilt could not shoot. Neither strategy optimized the Knicks' chance to win: a trailing team should be shooting quickly and either not fouling or fouling the worst free throw shooter (which most likely would have been Wilt, ironically, even though he shot his free throws well during that game).
My larger point is that 60 or 70 point games that are achieved under normal circumstances against physical defense are impressive, but 60 or 70 point games that happen under unusual circumstances or against passive defense are less impressive.
Your last paragraph, David, reminded me of an anecdote I heard in the late 2000s about Grant Long. As you likely remember, he's a former second-round pick who ended up having a 15-year career in the league, often as a starter, for quite a few playoff teams in a tough Eastern Conference. Not a bad scorer, but definitely the archetypical "rugged power forward," built to go against the likes of Charles Oakley and Dennis Rodman in the '90s.
Anyway, the storyteller was watching Long at practice one time and marveling at his accuracy and range. From 15 to 20 to 25 feet, swish after swish after swish. They went up to Long when he was done shooting and said, "Why can't you shoot like that in a game?" And Long told them that shooting in a game — with defense, crowd noise and everything else — is completely unlike shooting in practice.
That was a real lightbulb moment for me as a fan!
Great post, as always. I am encouraged by some of the successful frontlines in the NBA this year, that we may be moving away from this trend (or plague) of small-ball, but I think it's going to take more intentional effort by NBA and its referees to bring defense back to the game. I suspect that that effort will not happen until the majority of the NBA's audience is sick of watching 70-point games from second-rate superstars and 155-148 final scores.
Jaylen Brown is making $304 / 5 years as a perimeter player with a career FT 72.3% and this year FT 72.7%; and a career of disappearing in big moments (e.g., last year's ECF G7 when JT got injured). What incentive do the players have to care or change things?
TR:
I remember Grant Long, and I suspect that the story you are remembering is this one by Dave Barry: https://davebarry.com/president/dave2k/columns/long.htm It does not contain the exact quote that you referenced, but you remembered the gist of the story in terms of Long's skills.
My "Grant Long" moment happened over 30 years ago, while watching supposed "non-shooter" Gerald Wilkins (Dominique's brother) shooting 15-18 foot jumpers during warmups. He made almost every shot he took! Many fans have no idea how talented NBA players are, nor do they realize that "non-shooters" shoot better than 99% of people on planet Earth.
There are some videos on the internet of Brian Scalabrine--retired NBA role player--torching random high school and college players who think that they can beat him. Scalabrine told one of those players, "I am closer to LeBron James than you are to me," and of course Scalabrine is right: even if Scalabrine was the worst player in the NBA, he was still one of the few hundred best basketball players on the planet.
The importance of defense and size never changed, and we see that in the NBA Finals every year. The 2022 Warriors are one of the few exceptions in terms of size, but they played great defense and had the good fortune of not facing teams with talented size, including the Bucks and Lakers.
Anonymous:
That is a valid question. Players can earn generational wealth without reaching their full potential or even becoming a top 25-30 player (Brown is on the fringe of that level, at best), so there is not a financial incentive to improve after landing such a big guaranteed contract.
Thank you so much for the link, David, you're a treasure.
TR:
You're welcome! There may be a longer version of that story that mentions the exact quote that you mentioned, but the Miami Herald is behind a paywall so I can't see that version of the story.
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