So, the other day, I was just kicking back, watching some old NBA highlights. You know how it goes, one clip leads to another. Then I saw some player absolutely light it up in the first half, seemed like he couldn’t miss. That got me thinking, what’s the actual limit here? Like, what’s the absolute most points someone ever dropped in just one half of basketball?
It wasn’t like a big research project or anything, just genuine curiosity. My first thought went to guys like Kobe or Jordan, maybe even Harden in his prime. Seemed logical, right? They had some explosive scoring nights.
My Digging Process
So, I grabbed my phone while the highlights were still rolling. Started doing some basic searches. You type in stuff like “NBA most points in a half record” and see what pops up.
- First few results mentioned some crazy high numbers.
- Saw Wilt Chamberlain’s name pop up a lot, which, honestly, isn’t surprising given his records.
- Needed to check if it was first half or second half, and the specific game.
I had to sift through a few articles, you know, cross-reference a bit. Sometimes you see different numbers thrown around on forums or less official sites. I always try to find a couple of reliable sources confirming the same thing. Looked for box scores or official NBA stats pages, though sometimes those old records are buried deep.
The Actual Record
After poking around for maybe 10-15 minutes, it became pretty clear. The record belongs to Wilt Chamberlain. No big shocker there, the guy was a statistical monster.
The specific number? 59 points. Yeah, fifty-nine points. In a single half. He did it in the second half of his famous 100-point game back on March 2, 1962. Think about that. Scoring nearly 60 points when the entire team might aim for that in a half is just wild.
So, that was my little journey into finding that stat. Started with a random thought watching highlights and ended up confirming another one of Wilt’s unbelievable records. It’s always fun to look up these bits of history and realize how insane some of these past performances really were.
