Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points in a single NBA game
No television, no footage of the final basket - just 4,124 fans and a record that still stands.
On March 2, 1962, in a small arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Warriors center Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single game against the New York Knicks, a feat no professional basketball player had ever achieved. The Warriors won 169-147.
Chamberlain made 36 of 63 field goals and - remarkably for a notoriously poor free-throw shooter - 28 of 32 at the line, both unusual for him. He reached 41 points by halftime and 69 by the end of the third quarter before pushing to a clean 100. All of it came before the three-point line existed.
The game wasn’t televised, and no film of the night survives; just 4,124 fans witnessed it in person.
The only known recording is a fan’s tape of the fourth-quarter radio broadcast. More than six decades on, no NBA player has matched 100 - the closest is Kobe Bryant’s 81 in 2006.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
