The Miami Heat's last 15 games have been incredibly strong and the team is pushing hard for a playoff spot as they advanced their winning streak to seven games last night. However, all eyes continue to focus on Bam Adebayo's historic performance against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night. Adebayo scored 83 points, the second most in a single game in NBA history. The center surpassed Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant's 81-point performance from twenty years ago.
With this historic performance, there have been criticisms throughout the NBA community regarding whether or not this was an "ethical" game. The Heat's game plan for most of the game was to feed Adebayo the ball to try and break the record rather than just try to win the matchup against the Wizards.
On a recent episode of his podcast, Bill Simmons was joined by NBA analyst Tim Legler and praised the historic achievement while also putting the Wizards on blast for allowing it to happen.
“Bam Adebayo [scored] 83 points,” Simmons began. “[It’s] in the running for single weirdest and most unexpected NBA achievement of my lifetime. A lot of people have been asking me over the last two days how I felt about this because they know I care about the history and stuff. First of all, I love when guys go for it because ultimately it’s a stupid regular season game. As you said earlier, when you have a chance to make history, you should go for it. But the biggest thing to me is when people say, ‘Well, that’s bastardizing the game, what they did at the end, Miami.’ Guess who’s bastardizing the game? F***ing Washington!”
This performance did come out of nowhere. While Adebayo is viewed as one of the better centers in the NBA, his career-high of points in a single game prior to Tuesday night was 41 points. He doubled it. The Wizards have been criticized this season for their performance as they find themselves again near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings with a 16-49 record and Simmons claims that their lackluster season is hurting the NBA's reputation more than Adebayo scoring the absurd number of points.
Join the Community
Don't miss out on our ROUNDTABLE community and the latest news!
It's completely free to join. Share your thoughts, engage with our Roundtable writers, and chat with fellow members.
Download the free Roundtable APP, and stay even more connected!