Every Player Who Scored 70+ Points in an NBA Game

Every player who has scored 70 or more points in an NBA game can fit on one short list. Across 78 years of professional basketball, the 70-point game has happened 15 times by 10 different players. Wilt Chamberlain owns six of those nights by himself, including the only 100-point game in league history. Kobe Bryant's 81 in 2006 is the second-highest single-game scoring total ever recorded and the only score in the 80s by anyone not named Wilt. Everyone else in the club — Elgin Baylor, David Thompson, David Robinson, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Damian Lillard, Luka Dončić, Joel Embiid — has reached the threshold exactly once. The full leaderboard mixes pre-shot-clock anomalies, scoring-title races decided on the final day of the season, and modern pace-and-space explosions that look like nothing the league had ever seen.

How Rare Is a 70-Point Game?

The NBA plays roughly 1,230 regular-season games per year. The 70-point game has occurred 15 times in NBA history. That works out to one 70-point performance every ~7,000 games played, or roughly once every six full seasons of basketball. Five of those 15 nights belong to a single season — Wilt Chamberlain's 1961-62 — and a sixth came the following year. Subtract Wilt entirely and the league has produced just nine 70-point games in 78 years. The threshold is genuinely uncommon. The 60-point game, by comparison, has happened more than 80 times. The 50-point game is now a routine in-season talking point. The 70-point game is something else — close to the absolute physical limit of what a single player can do across 48 minutes against any NBA-caliber defense.

Wilt Chamberlain — 100 points, March 2, 1962

The single most famous box score in basketball history. The Philadelphia Warriors beat the New York Knicks 169-147 at Hershey Sports Arena, and Wilt went 36-of-63 from the field (57.1%) and 28-of-32 from the free-throw line (87.5%) across the full 48 minutes. He added 25 rebounds. The 28 free throws made was its own league record for the night — remarkable for a career 51% free-throw shooter — and the 316 combined points was also a league record at the time. Chamberlain scored 23 in the first quarter, 18 in the second (41 at halftime), 28 in the third, and 31 in the fourth. The Knicks' starting center Phil Jordan was out with the flu; reserves Darrall Imhoff and Cleveland Buckner had no way to stop Wilt by themselves. There is no broadcast tape of the game. The only contemporary photo is the famous "100" sign Chamberlain held up in the locker room afterward.

Kobe Bryant — 81 points, January 22, 2006

The modern era's record, and a closer pursuit of Wilt's 100 than any number suggests. Kobe shot 28-of-46 from the field (60.9%), 7-of-13 from three (53.8%), and 18-of-20 from the free-throw line, scoring 81 in a 122-104 Lakers win over the Toronto Raptors. The Lakers trailed by 14 at halftime and were down 18 early in the third quarter. Kobe scored 55 points in the second half, including 28 in the third quarter and 23 in the final nine minutes of the fourth. Kobe later said the game was the first and only professional game his grandmother ever saw him play live. Phil Jackson left him on the floor late despite the eventual blowout because of the milestone in reach. It remains the second-highest individual scoring total in NBA history by 19 points — closer to Wilt's 100 than to the next name on the list.

Wilt Chamberlain — 78 points, December 8, 1961 (3OT)

Wilt's second-highest career single-game total came in a triple-overtime loss to the Lakers, in Philadelphia, where he played 63 minutes. The 78 was the NBA's single-game scoring record for less than three months before Wilt himself broke it on March 2 with the 100. The triple-overtime context is the asterisk — Elgin Baylor's pre-existing 71-point game was set in regulation, and Wilt would later break it in 48 minutes — but the raw 78 still stands as the highest scoring total in a single game with overtime, regardless of how many extra periods it took.

Editorial illustration: Every Player Who Scored 70+ Points in an NBA Game

The 73-Point Club — Thompson, Wilt, Luka

Three players have scored exactly 73 in a game, plus two of Wilt's other career totals at 73:

David Thompson — 73 points, April 9, 1978

The most famous side-by-side scoring race in NBA history. Thompson, playing for the Denver Nuggets, scored 73 against the Detroit Pistons on the final day of the regular season to take the scoring lead from George Gervin. Gervin, playing later that night against the New Orleans Jazz, dropped 63 — including 33 in the second quarter — to win the scoring title by the slimmest margin in league history: 27.22 PPG to 27.15 PPG. Thompson held the lead for about seven hours. He had scored 53 in the first half before getting cold in the fourth. Gervin won the title; Thompson won the box score; and the rest of the league watched the two players essentially trade calculator entries across a single regular-season Sunday.

Luka Dončić — 73 points, January 26, 2024

The most efficient 70-point game in NBA history. Dončić shot 25-of-33 from the field (75.8%), 8-of-13 from three, and 15-of-16 from the free-throw line in a 148-143 Mavericks win over the Atlanta Hawks. He scored 41 points in the first half — a Mavericks franchise record for any half. He became the first player in NBA history to score 70 or more while shooting 75% or better from the field. The 73 tied for the fourth-highest single-game scoring total in league history, matching David Thompson and Wilt Chamberlain.

Wilt Chamberlain — 73, 73, 72 points (1962-63 season)

Three additional Wilt 70-point games came in a single season. He scored 73 on November 16, 1962 against the Knicks again, 73 on January 13, 1962 in 3OT against the Chicago Packers, and 72 on November 3, 1962 against the Lakers. Chamberlain averaged 44.8 PPG in 1962-63 — only the second time anyone has averaged 40+ in a season, and the second-highest single-season scoring average ever, behind his own 50.4 from 1961-62. Three different 70-point games inside a single 80-game year is a feat no other player has matched even with their entire career.

The 71-Point Club — Baylor, Robinson, Lillard, Mitchell

Four players have scored exactly 71. Their nights span 63 years.

Elgin Baylor — 71 points, November 15, 1960

The first 70-point game in NBA history. Baylor, playing for the Lakers at Madison Square Garden, scored 71 with 25 rebounds in a 123-108 win over the Knicks. The performance broke his own pre-existing single-game record of 64. Baylor's 71 stood as the NBA scoring record for a little over a year — until Wilt's 78 in December 1961 — and remained the second-highest mark in league history until Kobe's 81 nearly five decades later.

David Robinson — 71 points, April 24, 1994

A scoring-title race that came down to the final day. Robinson trailed Shaquille O'Neal by 0.06 points per game entering the last game of the 1993-94 regular season. He went 26-of-41 from the field including 1-of-2 from three, and 18-of-26 from the line for 71 in 44 minutes against the Los Angeles Clippers, with Spurs coach John Lucas designing the offense to keep him on the ball through every double and triple team. The performance lifted his season average to 29.79 PPG. Shaq finished his own final game with 32 points and a season average of 29.35. Robinson became the fourth player in NBA history to hit 70, joining Chamberlain, Baylor, and Thompson.

Damian Lillard — 71 points, February 26, 2023

Lillard's career high arrived in a 131-114 Trail Blazers win over the Houston Rockets. He went 22-of-38 from the field, 13-of-22 from three (a career best in threes), and 14-of-14 from the line — and he did it in regulation, after scoring 41 in the first half alone. The 13 made three-pointers is the highest figure ever made in a 70-point game. Lillard joined Wilt, Kobe, and David Thompson as players who had crossed the 60-point threshold at least five times in their careers.

Donovan Mitchell — 71 points, January 2, 2023

The first 70-point game in 71 days that season — Lillard's would follow seven weeks later — and the first ever produced with at least 10 assists. Mitchell finished with 11 assists, eight rebounds, and 71 points in 50 minutes of an overtime win, leading the Cavaliers from 21 points down to a 145-134 victory over the Chicago Bulls. He set career bests with 20 made and 25 attempted free throws. He was the first player to crack 70 points since Booker in 2017 — a six-year gap that ended a relatively quiet stretch for the threshold and previewed a 70-point boom that produced Lillard, Embiid, and Doncić across the following 13 months.

The 70-Point Threshold — Booker, Embiid

Two players have scored exactly 70.

Devin Booker — 70 points, March 24, 2017

The first 70-point game in 23 years — Booker became the sixth player ever to reach the threshold, in a 130-120 Suns loss to the Boston Celtics. He was 21 years old, in his second NBA season. He had 19 at halftime, 23 in the third quarter, and 28 in the fourth. The Suns lost despite the performance — Isaiah Thomas led Boston with 34 — and Booker's 70 remains a franchise record. The game broke a 23-year drought between 70-point performances dating back to David Robinson's 71, the longest gap between any two 70-point games in NBA history.

Joel Embiid — 70 points, January 22, 2024

The most efficient bigman 70-point game on record. Embiid shot 24-of-41 from the field, 1-of-2 from three, and 21-of-23 from the free-throw line, scoring 70 in just 36 minutes and 38 seconds — the fastest 70-point game ever played, by any player. He added 18 rebounds and 5 assists. Embiid broke Wilt Chamberlain's 76ers franchise scoring record (68, set on December 16, 1967) with a layup at 1:41 of the fourth quarter. Rookie Victor Wembanyama scored 33 in the same game, the first matchup between the two 7-footers. Embiid's effort came two days before Luka Dončić's 73, producing the first time in NBA history that two 70-point games happened within a 96-hour window.

What These Games Have in Common

Read the list end-to-end and a few patterns hold. Wilt Chamberlain owns 40% of the entire 70-point ledger — six performances spread across two seasons in his early-1960s prime. Every 70-point game since 1965 has come against a non-elite defensive team or in a specific scoring-title context. Robinson's 71 was a scoring-title chase. Thompson's 73 was the same. Mitchell, Lillard, Doncić, and Embiid all dropped theirs against bottom-third defensive teams in pace-up systems. Five of the modern-era 70-point games have come in the last seven years — Booker in 2017, Mitchell and Lillard in 2023, Embiid and Doncić in 2024 — a clear product of NBA scoring inflation and the modern three-point ecosystem. Only two of the 15 ever have come in a team loss: Booker's 70 in 2017 and Wilt's 78 in 1961. The vast majority of 70-point nights end with the scoring team in the win column, which is the part the eye test alone doesn't always communicate — 70 points in 40 minutes is a guaranteed win condition against any roster ever assembled.

The lesson the list as a whole teaches is that 70-point games happen at the intersection of one specific shooter, one specific game-plan permission, and one specific defensive matchup. The modern wave — Mitchell, Lillard, Embiid, Doncić — runs through systems that grade three-point volume as the highest-value scoring action, and runs against opponents who weren't built to switch onto a primary creator across 40+ minutes. The pre-modern wave — Wilt, Baylor, Thompson, Robinson — happened in eras where the best center on each side simply got the ball every possession down. The threshold itself is harder than it looks, but the conditions that make it possible are increasingly common. The next 70-point game probably isn't 23 years away. It might be 23 days.

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