Wilt Chamberlain Scores 100: The Unbreakable Record
Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a venue so obscure that no television footage of the game exists. Only 4,124 people attended. Chamberlain made 36 of 63 field goal attempts and an astonishing 28 of 32 free throws, remarkable for a notoriously poor free-throw shooter who averaged 51 percent that season. The Warriors force-fed him the ball in the fourth quarter as the crowd chanted for 100. The Knicks tried everything to slow the game down, including intentionally fouling other Warriors players. With 46 seconds remaining, Chamberlain dunked to reach the century mark. The game ended 169-147, the highest-scoring NBA game at the time. The record has stood for over sixty years, and the emergence of pace-slowing analytics, three-point shooting, and load management makes it virtually impossible to challenge in the modern game.
March 2, 1962
64 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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