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This Day In Sports…April 24, 1994:
San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson becomes just the fourth player in NBA history (after Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and David Thompson) to score 70 points in a game as he goes for 71 in a win over the Clippers at the L.A. Sports Arena. The explosion enabled “The Admiral” to pass Shaquille O’Neal on the final day of the regular season for the NBA scoring title, breaking a seven-year run by the temporarily-retired Michael Jordan.
With Jordan in the first year of his baseball experiment, the scoring race came down to Robinson and Orlando’s Shaquille O’Neal. Entering the final game, O’Neal led Robinson by 33 points. The very focused Robinson then launched 41 field goal attempts and made 26 of them. One was a three-pointer. Shaq scored 32 in his regular season finale earlier in the day, and Robinson won the scoring crown by six points. It was the only time in his 14-year career that Robinson led the NBA in scoring.
“I looked up at the scoreboard,” Robinson told reporters after the game, according to NBA.com. “I said, ’71 points. Oh, my goodness!’ It was unbelievable. My team has been behind me the whole year. They always push me to do a lot of individual things. As a leader, I just try to win games, but tonight they really wanted me to shoot it. When the game started they were looking for me almost every time down the court.” It didn’t come without controversy, as the Spurs were fouling the Clippers while leading by 20 points in order to get Robinson more chances.
Robinson’s name came up this season when Miami’s Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat put up the second-most points in a single game in NBA history, scoring 83 in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards in March. Adebayo passed the late Kobe Bryant, who scored 81 points for the L.A. Lakers in a 2006 game. Robinson’s 71-pointer is now tied for 10th in NBA history. More recently, Luka Doncic of the Lakers scored 73 points in 2024, and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell and Portland’s Damian Lillard both produced 71-point games in 2023. Chamberlain notched five games in the 70s in addition to his legendary 100-point game in 1962.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
