Bam Adebayo’s historic and wildly entertaining 83-point outburst has faced backlash online and from some in the media. Because of course it did. This is the world we live in, where backlash to anything and everything — often just to draw attention — has become a dominant force of American politics and culture. As if Kobe Bryant’s legacy needs random people on social media defending it.
The Miami Heat were staunchly unapologetic in the wake of this backlash.
“I apologize to absolutely no one. Period,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after he left his star player in a blowout game to chase the record, and even ordered fouling in the final minutes to get Adebayo more shots.
Highlights: Adebayo passes Kobe, scores 83 in game
Relive Bam Adebayo’s biggest moments from his 83-point night against the Washington Wizards, where he passed Kobe Bryant for the second-most points scored in an NBA game.
“First of all, y’all are blaming me. You should be blaming that head coach [Washington’s Brian Keefe],” Aderbayo said Thursday after the Heat beat the Bucks. “Get that first. I was not the one that let me go one-on-one the whole game until I had 70, and then started to send a double. At that point, I had 70 with, what, nine minutes left to go in the game? You think I’m not going for it?”
As Adebayo noted, going for it is exactly what Kobe would have done.
“I’m pretty sure if I had 81 and Kobe was on his way [to beating that record], he was not being like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna check myself out with nine minutes left when I got 70.’ Be serious,” Adebayo said.
It was a game in which the tanking Wizards had no one who could slow Adebayo, and with leading scorers Norman Powell and Tyler Herro out for the night, Miami leaned hard into Adebayo. He was hot, and the Wizards could not slow him. While both sides changed tactics as the fourth quarter went on, there have been “shenanigans” in every crazy high-scoring game, including Kobe’s 81.
Washington, for its part, was embarrassed, something Josh Robbins wrote about at The Athletic.
“It’s not something you want to be a part of and things like that, but you see everybody’s reaction and how he got it,” [Washington’s Trae] Young said. “We were all thinking the same way, how it was kind of weird, them fouling (with less than) two minutes (left) just to give him more possessions. It was a weird thing. It wasn’t very Erik Spoelstra-like. He’s an unbelievable coach and has done some great things.
“(Bam) scored a lot of points. You’ve got to give him credit. But the way it happened and the way it went down, you see the reaction from people around the league. Around everybody, it’s kind of the same. So we had a similar mindset, but at the same time, we allowed it to happen in the first half and gave him a rhythm to even have the confidence to think he was going to get that.”
Washington bounced back with a much better effort against Orlando on Thursday night, taking a hot Magic team to overtime. This is a Wizards team that understands where it is — tanking this season to hold on to a top-eight protected first-round pick. Next season, with Young, a healthy Anthony Davis (*knocks on wood*) and a strong young core boosted by whomever they draft in June, the Wizards should be a respectable team. The best Wizards team in years.
The kind of team that nobody is scoring 83 points on.
