Bam Adebayo baffled by criticism of 83-point game: ‘If you are mad, I don’t care’ – The Athletic

MIAMI — Bam Adebayo defended himself better than the Washington Wizards did.

Two days after going for 83 points, the second-highest scoring output ever in an NBA game, the Miami Heat big man echoed the sentiment his head coach expressed hours earlier: Forget about moralizing his accomplishment.

“First of all, y’all are blaming me. You should be blaming that head coach. Get that first,” Adebayo said Thursday after the Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks 112-105. “I was not the one that let me go one-on-one the whole game until I had 70 (points) and then started to send a double (team). At that point, I had 70 with, what, nine minutes left to go in the game? You think I’m not going for it?”

Over the last few minutes of Tuesday’s magnificence, the Heat mucked up the game to create extra shots for Adebayo, fouling the Wizards intentionally and force-feeding him the ball. Washington tried inorganic basketball, too, sending its entire defense his way just to avoid a place in the record books.

Adebayo went for 31 points in the first quarter, 12 more in the second and entered the final period with 62. He finished the game with 43 free-throw attempts, 16 of which came in the fourth.

“That’s the thing that’s crazy when they talk about the unethical part of basketball. I’m like, ‘I had 70 with nine minutes to go,’” Adebayo continued. “Who would just be like, ‘You know, coach? Just take me out.’ Yeah, right. … A minute? All right. Nine? Yeah, I’m going for it. You can’t be mad at that.

“If you are mad, I don’t care. Because a lot of people, they’re upset because if they did play, they never had a chance to get that close to chasing greatness. And if you get that close to chasing greatness, that’s the point of chasing it, so you can surpass it. … If you’ve been in the backyard, and you and a couple of your homies are playing 21, and you got 19, you’re not gonna get an easy look off.

“They’re gonna talk about the free throws. It’s not like I shoot 15 free throws a game. It’s not like I average 10 free throws a game. You can watch the film. I was legitimately getting fouled every time, so I went to the free-throw line.”

With just over a minute to go Tuesday, Adebayo drew his final foul, nailing both free throws to pass Kobe Bryant’s legendary 81 marker and get to 83. Adebayo finished 36-of-43 from the free-throw line, setting an NBA record for free-throw attempts.

Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance remains the most points a player has scored in an NBA game.

“Some people going crazy, because they’re like, ’83 is 83, no matter how you get it,’” Adebayo said. “And some people are gonna say, ‘It wasn’t the way Kobe did it.’ And you start throwing that around, and I’m like, ‘Listen, I’m a Kobe fan.’

“I got close to his record. What do you think I’m gonna do? Try to break it. I’m pretty sure if I had 81 and Kobe was on his way (to breaking it), he would not be like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna check myself out with nine minutes left when I got 70.’ Be serious.”

Ironically, Adebayo shot nearly as many fourth-quarter free throws Thursday, when he finished with 21 points on just 6-of-20 shooting, as he did Tuesday. After a slow start, he scored 13 points in the final period, sinking 9-of-12 attempts at the line to polish off Miami’s seventh win in a row.

The uptick came by surprise — including to Adebayo, who played all 12 minutes of the period. By the third quarter of Thursday’s game, he looked exhausted. After the win over Milwaukee, once he reached the two stairs that lead up to the stage for his postgame news conference, he started to trudge in an exaggerated fashion, as if to show off his pain. He turned back to longtime Heat media relations head Tim Donovan and joked he needed a ramp.

“Like Kobe said, you gotta be in shape,” Adebayo said. “You gotta have great endurance and be in shape to really catch that, and I understand it now.”

Before the Bucks game, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra had laid out an impassioned defense of Adebayo’s 83-point performance, insisting he was “apologizing to nobody” for Adebayo’s miraculous evening.

“I’m kinda in awe of myself, because if you (asked) me, ‘What’s your career high?’ And if you’re like, ‘83,’ someone’s gonna be like, ‘What the f—-?” Adebayo laughed.

“You’re surrounded with eyes because everybody wants to see if you can do it again, which is crazy,” he said. “Because I don’t think anybody will ever do it again.”

Even amid criticism, Adebayo can see his future.

He was already moving slowly by the time he reached those stairs up to the postgame stage Thursday. He staggered carefully while exiting the locker room, one foot after another landing gently on the red felt that covers Kaseya Center’s back hallway.

To his left, a small group of fans had propped a door open and screamed to him from 30 feet away.

“Bam!!” one shouted. “Eighty-three! Eighty-three!”

Adebayo turned to Donovan and smiled.

“That’s crazy,” he quipped. “That’s now gonna be the only thing people yell at me.”