On March 2, 1962, a professional basketball game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, produced one of sport’s cleanest and most unbelievable numbers: 100 points by one player. Wilt Chamberlain reached triple figures for the Philadelphia Warriors in a 169–147 victory over the New York Knicks, setting an NBA single-game record that still stands.
The official NBA scoring record breaks down his night quarter by quarter: 23 points in the first, 18 in the second, 28 in the third and 31 in the fourth. Chamberlain played all 48 minutes and also collected 25 rebounds and two assists.
The strangest number was at the free-throw line
Chamberlain made 36 of 63 shots from the field. The more surprising contribution came from free throws. He converted 28 of 32 attempts—87.5 percent—even though his career free-throw percentage was only 51.1 percent. The surviving official NBA box score confirms all of those figures.
By halftime he had 41 points, impressive but not yet a clear warning that 100 was coming. His 28-point third quarter pushed him to 69. As the possibility became real, Philadelphia increasingly fed him the ball. New York tried to prevent it by fouling other Warriors, while Philadelphia deliberately fouled Knicks players to regain possession more quickly.
A final basket and an unfinished game
With 46 seconds remaining, Joe Ruklick passed to Chamberlain for the basket that produced point number 100. Spectators rushed onto the court, ending the contest before the final seconds could be completed. In the locker room, team statistician Harvey Pollack wrote the famous total on a sheet of paper and asked Chamberlain to hold it for photographers.
The Philadelphia 76ers’ historical account notes that the game was played in Hershey because the Warriors sometimes took home contests to other Pennsylvania cities. Only 4,124 spectators attended—far fewer than the number of people who later claimed to have witnessed it.
A record preserved mostly through sound
No complete game video exists. That absence helped turn the event into sporting folklore, but there is meaningful surviving evidence: the official statistics, eyewitness accounts, photographs and a radio recording of the fourth quarter. The NBA has preserved that final-quarter broadcast.
Chamberlain’s achievement was not an isolated explosion. During the 1961/62 season he averaged 50.4 points per game and set an extraordinary record of 48.5 minutes per game because he played nearly every available minute, including overtime. Yet even by his own enormous standards, Hershey remains unique: one player, 100 points and a record that has survived more than six decades.
Sources and further reading
- NBA — Most points scored by a player in an NBA game
- NBA — Knicks vs. Warriors official box score, March 2, 1962
- Philadelphia 76ers — Wilt Chamberlain profile and 100-point game
