Wilt’s 100-Point Game

On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain set an NBA record that has not been broken in 54 years and may never be broken. He scored a single-game record 100 points in the Philadelphia Warriors’ 169-147 win over the New York Knicks.

Of the thousands and thousands of games played in NBA history, no player has scored more points than Wilt did in Hershey, Pennsylvania that night. The 100-point outburst shattered the previous record of 78 points that Wilt had set three months earlier.

In the 53 years that have passed, there has been only one performance that came within 20 points of Wilt’s incredible record – that was Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006.

While many say records are made to be broken, Wilt may have set the mark too high for any player to reach.

Take a look at some of the crazy numbers from this performance. Wilt made 36 of an NBA-record 63 shot attempts for 72 of his 100 points.

The other 28 points came from the free throw line, where he made a remarkable 28-of-32 attempts. Wilt was not a good free throw shooter as he made just 51% of his free throws for his career. But on this legendary night, everything was going right for the Big Dipper as he connected on 87.5% of his free throws.

It added up to 100 – one of the most famous numbers in NBA history and was captured in the photograph above as Philadelphia statistician Harvey Pollack scribbled the number on a white sheet of paper and had Wilt hold it up for the camera to capture this special moment in NBA history.

Below is a look at the top scoring games in NBA history. Wilt has five of the top seven performances of all time with none greater than the 100-point record from March 2, 1962.

Top Scoring Games in NBA History