NBA: 100 points from Wilt Chamberlain: Cat to the milestone

On the second. March 1962 Wilt Chamberlain entered the history books of the NBA. His 100 points against the New York Knicks will probably remain a record forever. We look back on this memorable game that nobody wanted to see back then.

Almost every NBA fan has heard of the legendary 100 points from Wilt Chamberlain, but few have seen it. Likewise, the game was not broadcast on television, there was only one photographer present. There are only small audio snippets from the final quarter.

In retrospect, this seems confusing, but the NBA was still in its infancy in 1962. College basketball dominated, the NBA was of little relevance, so no member of the New York press made it to Hershey, Pennsylvania. There the Philadelphia Warriors played some games at that time. The press preferred to follow the jumping training of the Yankees and the Mets founded in the same year.

The opponent of the Warriors, the New York Knicks, were at that time the worst team in the league with a record of 27-45. Chamberlain didn’t really seem to care about the game either. The night before, he preferred to celebrate in New York with a woman whom he brought home at 6:00 in the morning. At 8 o’ clock he took the train to Philadelphia to have an extended hangover breakfast with some friends.

In the evening, only 4,124 souls officially lost themselves in the 8,000-man hall, which was actually built for ice hockey. It would have been less if the Philadelphia Eagles football players hadn’t played a fun basketball game against the Baltimore Colts before.

Those who had come have certainly not regretted it, seeing one of the craziest stories the league has ever produced. The hungover Wilt, who scored an average of 50.4 points in this historic 1961/62 season, led his team to a 169:147 win and beat the 100 points with statistics that are now absurdly absurd.

The Big Dipper took a total of 63 throws (36 hits) and turned 28 free-throwers into 32 attempts. Two facts stand out. Wilt was actually a historically bad throwing man from the line with a meager 51.1 percent, meanwhile he also tried to throw underhand before he decided against it again, because in his opinion the litter didn’t look cool.

I’m the world’s worst free-throwers,”admitted the center in his autobiography Wilt,” that night I was 87.5 percent, which shows that everyone can have luck once.”

There were two reasons why Chamberlain received so many attempts. Dipper’s teammates fouled the Knicks in the fourth quarter so that they could get the ball back and keep Wilt’s record. But even New York didn’t want to be completely humiliated and also deliberately foul Chamberlain, hoping that Wilt would miss the line as usual.

“The game was a farce,”said Knicks coach Eddie Donovan afterwards,”they fouled us and then we fouled them,” Warriors coach Frank McGuire even made a few backups at the end, so they could make a few more fouls and serve the ball to Chamberlain. It is interesting to note that Wilt’s foul games were not mentioned at all in his biography. Instead, the record setter said the Knicks were always trying to run the shotclock down so he couldn’t score.

The fact that Chamberlain was able to score three-figure points at all also had to do with the level of the league. Wilt was an exceptional phenomenon of his time and outdid most of his opponents around one head, including the centers. In addition, only 37 Afro-American players played in the NBA, the bigs, with the exception of Bill Russell, were mostly white, hip stiff and certainly not athletic.

The Knicks also had to give up their starting center, Phil Jordon. Officially it was reported that he had the flu, but his backup Darrall Imhoff later admitted that Jordon was just incredibly hung over. Imhoff had grown quite big at 2.08 meters, but had no chance against Chamberlain and played only 20 minutes due to problems with foul.

Imhoff achieved All-Star honors in 1967, but only played 5.9 points and 6.2 rebounds in 1962. Supposedly, after a blow-off against him, he is said to have said the following:”Why don’t we just give him 100 points and all of us go home” Imhoff was replaced by the even smaller Rookie Cleveland Buckner.

The Warriors always gave their star the spalding, which then tortured his opponents in the then still smaller zone (it was enlarged and widened in 1964 because of Wilt) then. 63 throwing attempts are unrivalled until today, not even Michael Jordan took in a game more than 49 throws. By way of comparison, Kobe Bryant shot 50 times for 60 points in his absurd farewell game. The Black Mamba scored 81 points in 2006 against the Toronto Raptors, making it the player closest to Wilt’s scoring record.

“My teammates wanted it that way,”said Chamberlain later,”They kept giving me the ball even though they had free throws. I think I really threw too much, especially in the fourth quarter when everyone wanted me to score 100 points. Unthinkable.

It was also inconceivable how the media saw this milestone. In Philadelphia, there were smaller references to the front pages of the local newspapers, the Philadelphia Daily News did not even have it on the cover, and the agency’s report was not enough for the New York media. At that time, the United States could not identify with a black athlete who was also two heads taller than the average citizen.

It was just a matter of time,”explained Al Attle’s team-mate,” We were all waiting for it,”but the Knicks, who later described Chamberlain as unsportsmanlike, were not happy at all.

Player Richie Guerin made the thesis that Chamberlain would only have scored 85 points if the game had ended normally, Wilt countered and said he would have poured the Knicks 140 points if they had played “sincere basketball”. Either way, we’ll never find out, not least because of the lack of images that Chamberlain’s performance missed a mystical touch.

Two days later, the two teams met again in Madison Square Garden and Imhoff had to face Wilt again. The Warriors won 129:128, Chamberlain scored “only” 58 points. Imhoff was taken by the audience with standing ovations.