Overview
Wilt Chamberlain set the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association (NBA) by scoring 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a 169–147 win over the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, at Hershey Sports Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It is widely considered one of the greatest records in the sport's history. Chamberlain set five other league records that game including most free throws made, a notable achievement, as he was regarded as a poor free throw shooter. Both teams broke the record for most combined points in a game (316).
That season, Chamberlain averaged a single-season record 50.4 points per game, and he broke the NBA single-game scoring record (71) earlier in the season in December with 78 points. The third-year center had already set season scoring records in his first two seasons. During the fourth quarter, the Knicks began fouling other players to keep the ball away from Chamberlain, and they also became deliberate on offense to reduce the number of possessions for Philadelphia. The Warriors countered by committing fouls of their own to get the ball back.
The game was not televised, and no video footage of the game has since been recovered; there are only audio recordings of the game's fourth quarter. The NBA was not yet recognized as being a major sports league and struggled to compete against college basketball. The attendance at the game was approximately half of capacity, and no members of the New York press were at the game.
Prologue
A and center, Chamberlain was in his third season in the NBA, having set season scoring records in each of his first two seasons with 37.6 and then 38.4 points per game. Frank McGuire, the Warriors' new coach, started the season vowing to get the ball to Chamberlain "two-thirds of the time." Sports Illustrated wrote that McGuire's "eventual effect may be to measurably change the character of professional basketball from the brawling, hustling, cigar-in-the-face and eye-on-the-till game it has been for decades to the major league sport which it longs and deserves to be." He was determined to play Chamberlain every minute of every game; the center had missed only eight minutes and 33 seconds that season due to disqualification in a game from technical fouls. In three earlier games that week, Chamberlain had scored 67, 65, and 61 points respectively, giving him an already-record 15 times scoring 60 or more points in his career.
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