While you were sleeping, Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard finished with 71 points during a victory over the Houston Rockets.
Lillard, who had 41 points at halftime, is one of the most breathtaking scorers in basketball. On the offensive side of the floor, Lillard can truly outpace any player in the league on any given night.
But what he accomplished on Sunday night was especially magical. It is not easy to exceed 70 points in an NBA game. But is even harder to do what he did as efficiently as he was able to do it. Best of all is that the way he scored as many points made history.
Among all the players who have ever scored at least 70 points in a single game, none have ever accomplished as much as efficiently as Lillard did against the Rockets.
Damian Lillard finished tonight with 71 points on 38 FGA and 14/14 from the line. Which is good for a True Shooting %* of 80.4%
Of the eleven 71+ point games in NBA history, that's the most efficient in history, per @bball_ref https://t.co/aiefYvE5qf pic.twitter.com/iPRnd0ADMa
— Cory Jez (@JezData) February 27, 2023
As noted by Cory Jez, the guard finished with a true shooting percentage of 80.4 percent. It broke the previous record among 70-point scorers, which was set by Donovan Mitchell (78.9 percent) earlier this season.
Lillard and Mitchell ranked ahead of David Thompson (1978), Kobe Bryant (2006), and Wilt Chamberlain (1963).
During the game on Sunday, the Portland guard finished a perfect 14-for-14 from the free-throw line and he connected on 13 shots from beyond the arc. It was a truly masterful display of efficiency in which he scored 1.56 points per possession, via Synergy.
Among all players who have scored at least 60 points in a single game, meanwhile, Lillard also holds the all-time record for the most efficient true shooting performance (89.8 percent) from a win over the Jazz last month.
Only three players in NBA history have had separate games with at least 50, 60 and 70 points in a single NBA season.
Wilt Chamberlain
Kobe Bryant
Damian Lillard— Sam Quinn (@SamQuinnCBS) February 27, 2023
In fact, per Sam Quinn: Lillard now joins Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant as the only players in NBA history to ever notch 50 points, 60 points, and 70 points in the same season.
Additionally, Lillard now joins Kobe and Wilt as the only players with at least five 60-point games in NBA history. (For context: Michael Jordan and James Harden each have four.)
With his 71-PT performance tonight, Damian Lillard now has the third-most 60+ PT games in NBA history with 5.
1. Wilt Chamberlain (32 games)
2. Kobe Bryant (6 games)
3. Damian Lillard (5 games) pic.twitter.com/5TGlHpjfVa— NBA.com/Stats (@nbastats) February 27, 2023
Whenever your name appears in the record books alongside only legends like Wilt and Kobe, you know you are in rarified air.
Although last night was a career-high for Lillard, high-volume efficiency is not unusual for the seven-time All-Star.
The Trail Blazers’ superstar is one of the most exciting players to watch in the league and he is one of the most explosive scorers in recent memory. If his team is able to make a run in the postseason, don’t count Lillard out of any given game.
