Bam Adebayo is monstrous: scores 83 points with the Miami Heat and surpasses Kobe Bryant's record.

At the Kaseya Center in Miami, Bam Adebayo has signed one of the most remarkable feats in the history of world basketball: 83 points in a single game.

With this extraordinary performance, the center for the Miami Heat surpassed the iconic record of 81 points set by Kobe Bryant in 2006, rising to second place overall in the NBA rankings for the highest scoring in a game, behind only the unreachable 100 by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962.

The Heat's victory over the Washington Wizards by 150-129 is almost the backdrop for a sports achievement from another era.

Adebayo has never been considered a “shooter” or a “compulsive soloist,” but rather one of the best “two-way” players in the league, a master of reads and defensive help. This is precisely why this performance is exceptional.

The numbers compose a monument to physical and mental endurance, as well as an impressive volume of play. Adebayo finished with 20/43 from the field and 7/22 from beyond the arc; the true masterpiece, the one that “disturbed” every opposing defensive mechanism, came from the free-throw line: 36/43 from the free throws, a new NBA record for free throws made and attempted in a single game.

An outcome resulting from a surgical tactical plan against a defense, that of Washington, among the most permeable of the season. Unable to contain him in the post or on the central pick-and-roll, the Wizards accumulated fouls in a vain attempt to contain him with doubles, triples, and even hints of zone defense.

The run began from the tip-off: 31 points in the first quarter (among the highest individual scoring periods of the recent era), 43 at halftime, 62 at the end of the third.

In the final quarter, the Heat's creed was one: defend with intensity, recover the ball, and serve their center. In this context, Adebayo completed the legendary overtaking of Kobe Bryant, also breaking the franchise record for Miami (61 points), which had belonged to LeBron James since 2014.

At the end of the match, Bam Adebayo, with teary eyes, went to embrace his mother at the sidelines.