Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game

• 1. Introduction

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  Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game was played on the 2nd of March 1962 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Warriors beat the New York Knicks 169-147, and Chamberlain scored 100 of those points. It remains the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association. The game was not televised, and no video of it has ever been recovered. What exists is audio of the final quarter, one famous photograph, and decades of conflicting memories. This documentary asks why the league's biggest scoring feat happened in a small chocolate town. It asks who tried to stop Chamberlain that night, and who quietly helped him. And it asks how much of the legend is actually true.

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• 2. A League Fighting For Notice

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  In November 1950, the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 while barely trying to score. They held the ball for minutes at a time to blunt the Lakers' star center, George Mikan, who stood 6 ft 10 in. The Pistons took only 13 shots all game. NBA President Maurice Podoloff said, "In our game, with the number of stars we have, we of necessity run up big scores." Teams once averaged just over 80 points per game. After the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954, scoring and attendance rose, and teams eventually averaged 119 points each.

  The NBA had begun integrating in 1950, and in Chamberlain's third season there were 37 Black players in the league. Their style was faster and played above the rim. Many of the league's great players were Black, and they believed a quota of four per team held them back. Critics also complained that basketball was growing dull, with taller players dominating. Chamberlain's Warriors teammate Joe Ruklick described the attitude among white players. In his words, it was that "Chamberlain is a freak who will come and go. There will never be a black guy doing this again."

  By 1962 the NBA was in its 16th season and still not a major sports league. Only one team, the Los Angeles Lakers, played west of St. Louis. College basketball was far better established. Television ratings were low, and the National Broadcasting Company, known as NBC, was considering not renewing the league's television contract.

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• 3. The Dipper

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  In a high school game in 1955, Chamberlain scored 90 points in a 123-21 victory. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that he might have reached 100 if he had played the full 32 minutes. Seven years later he was a 7 ft 1 in, 260 lb center in his third NBA season. He had set scoring records in each of his first two seasons, averaging 37.6 and then 38.4 points per game.

  Frank McGuire, the Warriors' new coach, began that season vowing to get the ball to Chamberlain "two-thirds of the time." He also meant to play him every minute of every game. Chamberlain had missed just eight minutes and 33 seconds all season, after being disqualified from one game on technical fouls. Sports Illustrated predicted that McGuire might change pro basketball from a brawling, hustling game into the major league sport it longed to be.

  On the 8th of December 1961, in a triple overtime game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Chamberlain scored 78 points. That broke the record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor. Broadcaster Chick Hearn often told of asking Baylor afterward whether the extra 15 minutes bothered him. According to Hearn, Baylor said he was not concerned, because "someday that guy is going to score 100." Rival center Bill Russell made a similar forecast: "Chamberlain has the size, strength, and stamina to score one hundred some night."

  In the three games before Hershey, Chamberlain scored 67, 65, and 61 points. That made 15 times in his career that he had reached 60 or more.

  Chamberlain's nickname was Dipper, and his slam dunks were called the Dipper Dunk. Traditionalists considered dunking poor sportsmanship, and it was rare. As the league's second-tallest player, he began dunking more regularly. Even so, he still preferred fadeaway shots and finger rolls. His teammate Paul Arizin believed Chamberlain did not want to be seen as great merely because he was tall.

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• 4. Chocolate Town Friday

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  On a cold, rainy Friday night, only 4,124 people paid to get into Hershey Sports Arena. Most came to watch Philadelphia Eagles players meet Baltimore Colts players in an exhibition basketball game before the NBA contest. The arena held over 8,000. Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb was infamous for exaggerating attendance numbers. Warriors home crowds had dropped from 7,000 in Chamberlain's rookie season to under 5,000 in his third.

  Hershey lay 85 miles from Philadelphia, and this was the Warriors' third "home" game there that season. The league occasionally played in remote towns to attract new fans. The arena was an old, drafty gym originally built for ice hockey. Warriors forward Tom Meschery called it a "god-forsaken place" and remembered that the whole town smelled of chocolate, so strongly that people felt sick. Teammate York Larese said, "There was nothing exciting about the Knicks playing the Warriors in Hershey. Chocolate was more exciting."

  Only five regular-season games remained. The Warriors, at 46-29, sat in second place, eleven games behind the Boston Celtics. The Knicks were in last place. Almost no one expected anything memorable.

  Chamberlain's own preparation was poor. He spent the night before in New York City, partying all night with a female companion until he dropped her at her home at 6 am. With no sleep and a hangover, he boarded an 8 am train to Philadelphia. He then had a long lunch with friends at the station and nearly missed the team bus to Hershey.

  Reporters from New York were in Florida covering spring training for the Yankees and the expansion Mets, so no New York press attended. The Warriors' publicist doubled as the stringer for the Associated Press, United Press International, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Only two photographers were in the building.

  The Knicks were missing starting center Phil Jordon, whose absence was officially blamed on influenza, though many suspected a hangover. In an early-season game Jordon had matched Chamberlain, scoring 33 to his 34. In his place New York started Darrall Imhoff, a 6 ft 10 in, 220 lb second-year player. Imhoff had led California to the 1959 NCAA championship and won a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics. Backup Cleveland Buckner, 6 ft 9 in, was a better shooter than defender. Chamberlain had overpowered him for an NBA record 28 points in one quarter just two days earlier.

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• 5. Building Toward 100

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  A few minutes in, the Warriors led 19-3, and Chamberlain already had 13 points on his first five shots. According to McGuire, nobody began the night with a plan to reach 100. By the end of the first quarter Chamberlain had 23 points, and Philadelphia led 42-26. All nine of his free throws had gone in, which mattered to him. The NBA record was 24 free throws made in a game, and free throws were his weakest skill. He had made barely more than half in his first two seasons. That season he had started shooting them underhanded on McGuire's suggestion.

  Imhoff soon landed on the bench with foul trouble. After one foul, he snapped at the referee, "Well, why don't you just give the guy a hundred now and we'll all go home!" Neither referee had ever worked as lead official before, and Imhoff privately wished a stronger lead was working the game.

  Halftime arrived with the Warriors ahead 79-68 and Chamberlain at 41 points. Nobody in Philadelphia's locker room was excited, since he had scored 60 or more on 15 earlier occasions. He later explained, "I often came into the locker room with 30 or 35 points, therefore, 41 points was not a big deal." Guy Rodgers then said, "Let's get the ball to Dip. Let's see how many he can get." McGuire agreed.

  This simple tactic proved unstoppable. Soon Chamberlain passed 50, and arena announcer Dave Zinkoff began shouting out his total after every basket, waking up the sleepy crowd. The Knicks triple- and quadruple-teamed him and did not shy from hard fouls. McGuire angrily demanded that the referees call more of them. Chamberlain added another 28 points in the third quarter, and the Warriors led 125-106. His total of 69 stood nine short of his own record of 78. Knicks center Dave Budd later said Chamberlain could not be played conventionally. Fronting him invited lob passes, and beating him down the floor only forced him a few extra steps from the basket, which was hard against a man of 270 or 300 pounds.

  With ten minutes to play, Meschery sensed the team concept breaking down. The offense had stopped cutting and moving and was simply watching Chamberlain. He needed 25 points with eight minutes left, a pace equal to 150 in a full game. He scored his 79th point with 7:51 remaining, breaking his own record, and the crowd went into a frenzy. Fans screamed, "Give it to Wilt! Give it to Wilt!" After he reached 80, they began calling for 100. Chamberlain thought, "Man, these people are tough. I'm tired. I've got 80 points and no one has ever scored 80."

  Al Attles later explained, "We wanted that Wilt got the record, because we all liked him." Five minutes from the end, Attles passed up an easy layup so that Chamberlain could score points 88 and 89.

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• 6. The Final Minutes

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  With six minutes remaining, the Knicks began intentionally fouling every Warrior except Chamberlain. They also slowed their own offense, using as much of the shot clock as possible. They played the opposite of what a trailing team normally does, giving up easy points to keep the ball from Chamberlain. Meschery said the Warriors lobbed the ball from the sideline across the floor directly to Chamberlain, who used his size and strength to get it. For almost four minutes Chamberlain was the only Warrior to make a field goal, until Meschery hit a jump shot at 4:15.

  Philadelphia began fouling New York with around four minutes left, returning the favor. At one point McGuire pulled his entire starting five except Chamberlain and sent in bench players. The idea was to foul, get the ball back after the free throws, and feed Chamberlain. The Warriors ended with 25 personal fouls and the Knicks with 32. Imhoff and Willie Naulls both fouled out with six.

  With 2:12 left, Chamberlain had 94 points, and a fadeaway gave him his 96th. At 1:19, a lob pass from York Larese set up a powerful dunk, which was rare for him. Gary M. Pomerantz wrote in his book Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era that Chamberlain's usual Dipper Dunk was "a considerably less emphatic basket stuff, like a rock that barely ripples the pond."

  With less than a minute left, Chamberlain set up in the post. Ruklick passed to Rodgers, who passed to Chamberlain close to the basket, but he missed. Ted Luckenbill rebounded and passed it back, and Chamberlain missed again. Luckenbill rebounded once more and this time passed to Ruklick. Ruklick eschewed an easy layup and instead lobbed a high pass toward Chamberlain.

  With 46 seconds left, Chamberlain got free from five Knicks, jumped high, and put the ball in for his 100th point. Eyewitnesses disagree on whether he laid the ball in or stuffed it through the hoop. Over 200 spectators stormed the floor, wanting to touch the hero of the night. Ruklick ran straight to the scorer's table to make sure he was credited with the assist.

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• 7. What Survives

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  A copy of the WCAU radio broadcast was uncovered only in 1988. WCAU's original tape had been recorded over by one of its engineers, which was standard practice in those days. A Philadelphian had used a Dictaphone to capture part of announcer Bill Campbell's fourth-quarter call, but only the Warriors' possessions. Two years later, a reel-to-reel tape of Campbell's entire fourth quarter surfaced. Jim Trelease, then a student at the University of Massachusetts, had recorded a 3 am rebroadcast. The NBA merged the reel-to-reel with the Dictaphone tape, which also held a short postgame show.

  For years, people believed the final 46 seconds were never played because of the celebration on the court. Chamberlain himself was quoted making that claim. The recordings say otherwise. After the 100th point, Campbell resumed his play-by-play and called the game through to its end. German sports journalist Gunter Bork specified that the interruption lasted nine minutes.

  Harvey Pollack, who handled publicity and statistics for the Warriors, gave conflicting accounts. In a 1992 book he was twice quoted saying the game ended with 46 seconds remaining. In a 2002 interview quoted by Chamberlain biographer Robert Cherry, he said those seconds were played. By that account, Chamberlain stood in the middle circle and refused to touch the ball, as "100 sounded better than 102." The official box score notes that Ruklick missed two free throws after the break. Ruklick said he planned to miss the second one in hopes that Chamberlain might rebound it and reach 102.

  The radio postgame show reported the final score as 169-150. The official scorer's report recorded 169-147. That discrepancy has never been explained.

  The famous photograph of Chamberlain on a bench, holding up a paper marked "100," was improvised. Pollack walked into the Warriors locker room, took a sheet of paper, and scribbled the number on it. Associated Press photographer Paul Vathis, who was at the game to give his son a treat rather than for work, took the picture. Cherry calls it the "ultimate picture" of Chamberlain.

  Kerry Ryman, who was 14 when he attended the game, said he left with the ball Chamberlain used for the famous basket. Lelands Auction sold it in 2000 for $551,844, then the third-highest price paid for sports memorabilia. After controversy over its authenticity, the sale was suspended. The ball was relisted months later and sold for $67,791. Attles stated that Chamberlain had given him the actual 100-point ball.

  In 2014, Josh Pastner, then head coach of the Memphis Tigers, said his father had been a ballboy for the Warriors and had taped the game starting in the second quarter. His father was searching through many boxes for the footage, but conceded it might be lost.

  Pomerantz wrote in his 2005 book that the lack of videotape "only added to its mystique." For a while, NBA Commissioner David Stern's office phone played Campbell's call of the final basket to callers on hold: "He made it! He made it! He made it! A Dipper Dunk!" In 2016, the surviving fourth-quarter audio was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. The registry cited its "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation's aural legacy."

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• 8. Verdict and Legacy

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  Chamberlain made 36 of 63 field goals and 28 of 32 free throws that night. His career free throw rate was roughly 50 percent. Johnny Kerr of the Syracuse Nationals marveled that the world's worst free-throw shooter had gone 28 for 32. In two earlier games at Hershey that season, Chamberlain had made 27 of 38 free throws, or 71 percent. The arena's rims were aged, flimsy, and forgiving, so balls near the rim tended to roll in rather than bounce off.

  Playing all 48 minutes, Chamberlain set NBA records for field goals attempted and made, free throws made, 31 points in a quarter, and 59 in a half. The teams combined for a record 316 points. Philadelphia fell short of the Celtics' then-record of 173 in one game. Boston guard Bob Cousy said defenses were "out of gas" by the end of a season. Rodgers finished with a game-high 20 assists and said, "It was the easiest game ever for me to get assists, all I had to do was pass it to Wilt." Attles, a defensive specialist who rarely scored, went 8-8 from the field. He lamented, "In the game where I literally couldn't miss, Wilt had to go out and score 100."

  Knicks player Richie Guerin felt the Warriors had broken a code of honor by embarrassing an opponent. He estimated that in a normal game Chamberlain would have finished 15 to 20 points shy of 100. Chamberlain countered that he could have scored 140 if the Knicks had played straight-up basketball. New York coach Eddie Donovan called the game a farce, while Naulls insisted it was absolutely authentic. Boston coach Red Auerbach laughed that Chamberlain was playing against nobody. Bill Russell smiled and said, "The Big Fella finally did it." McGuire admitted, "I always thought it was inevitable that he would do it. But when he did, I stopped and thought about it. I couldn't believe it."

  The newspapers were restrained. The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Bulletin each ran a box on the front page, while The Philadelphia Daily News left it off its cover. The New York Times ran the Associated Press story on page 14, and The New York Herald Tribune ran it on page 11. The New York Daily News ran the United Press International story on page 26. That Sunday, the Daily News wrote that basketball was not prospering because ordinary Americans could not identify with its "freakish stars." The New York Post gave prominent back-page coverage to the feat. Two days after the game, Chamberlain made a guest appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

  The following night, Chamberlain got permission to ride back to New York with three Knicks players. According to Cherry, he drifted in and out of sleep and got a kick out of hearing them talk about the "S.O.B. who scored 100 points on us." On the 4th of March, in Madison Square Garden, Imhoff got a standing ovation for holding Chamberlain to 58 points.

  Chamberlain finished the season with a record 50.4 points per game and a record 4,029 points. That was more than the division-winning Warriors of 1947-48 scored as a team. He played a record 3,882 minutes, including every minute of 79 of 80 games. The Warriors lost the Eastern Division Finals to the Celtics, dropping the seventh game 109-107. The next season, his best single games were 73 and 72 points. In 1964 the NBA widened the lane from 12 ft to 16 ft to limit him, and he averaged 36.9.

  Darrall Imhoff was branded as the man who let Chamberlain score 100, though he played only 20 of 48 minutes and was off the court when it happened. Joe Ruklick, the reserve who gave Chamberlain the 100th-point assist, was immortalized. He told The New York Times that he thinks of himself as "a walking footnote."

  The game was not widely commemorated until its silver anniversary in 1987. Pollack said an impossible 40,000 people claimed to have seen it. Chamberlain called it one of his favorite games but not the favorite, which was the night he grabbed an NBA record 55 rebounds against Russell. He did not want to feed criticism that he cared more about personal stardom than winning. On a radio show marking the game's 31st anniversary in 1993, he said, "As time goes by, I feel more a part of that 100-point game." He explained that attempting 63 shots on the playground would have earned him the label of gunner. "You take that many shots on the playground, and no one ever wants you on their team again," he said. In games he considered better, he scored 50 to 60 points on around 75 percent shooting, against 57 percent in this one.

  Adrian Dantley tied the record of 28 free throws made on the 4th of January 1984, and Bam Adebayo later surpassed it. The closest anyone has come to 100 is Adebayo's 83 in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards on the 10th of March 2026. David Thompson broke Chamberlain's mark for points in a quarter with 32 in the first quarter of a 73-point game. The record for combined points fell quickly. The San Antonio Spurs beat the Milwaukee Bucks 171-166 in triple overtime on the 6th of March 1982, for 337. The Detroit Pistons beat the Denver Nuggets 186-184, also in triple overtime, on the 13th of December 1983, for 370.

  Oscar Robertson, a Hall of Famer, believes the NBA would have lost its small television contract without the emergence of Black superstars. In 1961-62, the league's three highest scoring averages belonged to Chamberlain, Baylor, and Walt Bellamy. Robertson said, "People heard about Wilt scoring a 100, averaging 50 a night, and they wanted to see the guy do it." He added, "I believe Wilt Chamberlain single-handedly saved the league." Decades later, many NBA teams did not even average 100 points a game.

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