Miami Heat Star Bam Adebayo Responds to Backlash Following His 83-Point Game
By Liv Armstead
Bam Adebayo is not concerned with the backlash that he is receiving from NBA fans following his record breaking 83 point game.
Courtesy of Sports Illustrated
In case you missed it, the Miami Heat played against the Washington Wizards on March 10, with the Heat coming out on top 150-129. Adebayo managed to score 83 points, beating basketball legend Kobe Bryant’s record of 81 points scored in a game.
Adebayo was subjected to a lot of backlash from NBA fans, accusing the athlete of stat chasing and claiming that the majority of his points came from free throws.
Following the Heat’s 112-105 win against the Milwaukee Bucks two weeks ago, Adebayo had some words for his critics, saying they should direct their nonsensical anger at Washington Wizards head coach Brian Keefe.
“First of all, y’all are blaming me. You should be blaming their head coach. Get that first. I was not the one letting me go one-on-one the whole game until I had 70 and then you started to send a double,” said Adebayo per CBS Sports.
Adebayo continued by saying, “At that point, I got 70 with, like, what, nine minutes left to go in the game? You think I'm not going for it? And that's the thing that's crazy when they talk about the 'unethical' part of basketball. I'm like, if I have 70 with nine minutes to go, who would just be like, 'You know, Coach, just take me out.' Yeah, right. Anybody in my shoes with nine minutes left? [...] Yeah, I'm going for it. You can't be mad at that. If you are mad, I don't care.”
Young sports fans had their own opinions on Adebayo’s record breaking performance against the Wizards.
“I believe [Bam Adebayo scoring] was unethical but you can’t take away from a player scoring 83 points because that’s not easy to do at all,” said Diamond Wiggins, a player on the Hampton University women’s basketball team. “[However], they were fouling the opposing team on purpose to get the ball back to Bam for him to purposely beat the record.”
