Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career-high 55 points last Tuesday in Milwaukee’s win over Washington — and it wasn’t even Midfield’s best performance of the week.
That belonged to Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, who had an astounding 71 the night before.
The last few weeks the NBA has seen an almost nightly display of one skill among the game’s greatest scorers. Whether it’s Mitchell’s extraordinary effort for the Cavaliers or Luka Doncic of Dallas hitting 50 points three times in a nine-day span, everywhere you turn another player seems to be putting up a huge total.
“I think there’s a lot of layers. You see night after night, the guys have tremendous offensive games,” said Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. “It’s fun to watch as a fan, of course. Frustrating when you’re trying to come up with a game plan to stop some of these guys because they score on all levels — painting, 3s, hitting the goal line.”
Ten different players have scored 50 points in a game this season: Antetokounmpo, Mitchell, Doncic, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, Pascal Siakam, Darius Garland and Stephen Curry.
Prior to 2016-17, no more than eight different players had 50-point scores in a single season, according to Sportradar. Since then, at least 10 have done it every season, including a record 14 in 2021-22. Some of this is to be expected in a high-scoring era. NBA teams were averaging 113.8 points per game going into Monday night, which if continued would be the highest mark for the league since 1969-70. But the overall recording environment only tells part of the story.
In that 1969-70 season, the teams averaged 116.7 points, but only two players had 50 points a game. In 1984-85, the highest-scoring season of the 1980s, the teams averaged 110.8 points. But only five players—Bernard King, Larry Bird, Purvis Short, Kevin McHale, and Moses Malone—produced a 50-point game that season.
So what’s happening lately is not just higher league goals. Top gamers also produce massive games with remarkable frequency. Expansion may play a role. The number of teams is 30% higher than it was in 1985. More teams means more matches, so it makes sense that there would be more examples of a player scoring 50.
But the sport has changed in other ways, too.
“Guys come into this league,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said, “and what’s most impressive is the skill set—the grip and the shooting. What’s missing, I think, is the foundation and institutional knowledge that the guys used to have when they got into the league a few years out of college. Sometimes.” The defense isn’t great. Transitional defense is at an all-time low in this league.”
Nowadays, basically every scorer has some degree of 3-point range proficiency, whereas in the 1980s some superstars pretty much ignored the shot and nobody tried all that.
“Guys take 15 or 16 3s in some games,” Los Angeles Clippers coach Tyrone Law said. “Teams encourage players to take those hits, and if you hit a lot of hits, if you get hot and make some, you can score a lot of points.”
So current players have a variety of ways they can accumulate points quickly, and the 3-point shot affects the game even after that. With multiple players capable of opening 3s, teams can space out the floor in a way that punishes double teams defenses.
“You have to pick and choose which players you try to double down on and get the ball out of their hands because they are not great passers, but there are some players who can score, but who can also tag you with their passes,” Lue said. “So, when you have guys like that, you want to let those guys try to get their buddies and take everyone else out, but sometimes it can backfire on you as well.”
When King scored 60 on Christmas 1984, he didn’t try three times. Until this year, Antetokounmpo didn’t score when he scored 55. But Mitchell made 15 tries and scored seven points in his 71-point game.
“I think the three-point line, as we’ve seen over the years, has definitely changed the game,” said Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins. “Now you get more guys to accept that. The size of the tries creates those opportunities. It’s very rare for guys to shoot 2 repeatedly to get to the 50-point mark. It’s definitely an evolution of our game to see more of that. I expect that trend to continue.”
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Associated Press sports writer Pat Graham contributed to this report.
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