This is a list of the top 25 individual game scores attained by a player in the National Basketball Association. An unofficial statistic, these performances are analyzed and quantified by how impressive the all-around game is by the Hollinger Game Score formula devised by APBRmetrics statistician John Hollinger. It is a very similar measure to Player Efficiency Rating in that it focuses upon how effective and efficient a player's performance is, except that it does not factor in time played in the game and other tangibles, such as the strength of the opponent, the strength of the opponent's defense, the strength of the primary defender, and the location at which the game is played. For more on the Game Score formula, see the main article on John Hollinger.
In order to obtain the score of a player's performance, the entire box score is needed, so it is impossible to calculate a score for a game before the 1978 season, and at the moment, before the 1986-87 NBA season. So, this list currently entails all games played in the past 21 NBA seasons.
Here are the top 25 Hollinger Game Scores since the 1986-87 season (past 21 seasons). Michael Jordan leads the list, with 14 of the 27 top performances.
| Rank | Score | Date | Player | Opponent | Minutes | FGM-FGA | 3PM-3PA | FTM-FTA | Off Reb | Def Reb | Tot | Assists | Steals | Blocks | Turnovers | Fouls | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 64.6 | 3-28-1990 | Michael Jordan | at Cleveland Cavaliers | 50 | 23-37 | 2-6 | 21-23 | 7 | 11 | 18 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 69 | |
| 2 | 63.5 | 1-22-2006 | Kobe Bryant | vs Toronto Raptors | 42 | 28-46 | 7-13 | 18-20 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 81 | |
| 3 | 60.2 | 1-27-1990 | Karl Malone | vs Milwaukee Bucks | 33 | 21-26 | 0-0 | 19-23 | 9 | 9 | 18 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 61 | |
| 4 | 54.7 | 4-3-1988 | Michael Jordan | at Detroit Pistons | 42 | 21-27 | 0-1 | 17-19 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 59 | |
| 5 | 51.8 | 4-24-1994 | David Robinson | at Los Angeles Clippers | 44 | 26-41 | 1-2 | 18-25 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 71 | |
| 6 | 51.2 | 2-26-1987 | Michael Jordan | vs New Jersey Nets | 37 | 16-25 | 0-0 | 26-27 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 58 | |
| 6 | 51.2 | 11-3-1989 | Michael Jordan | vs Cleveland Cavaliers | 47 | 19-31 | 1-2 | 15-17 | 3 | 11 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 54 | |
| 8 | 50.9 | 3-16-2007 | Kobe Bryant | at Portland Trail Blazers | 50 | 23-39 | 8-12 | 11-12 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 65 | |
| 9 | 50.4 | 11-28-1992 | Reggie Miller | at Charlotte Hornets | 38 | 16-29 | 4-11 | 21-23 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 57 | |
| 10 | 50.0 | 3-24-1990 | Tom Chambers | vs Seattle SuperSonics | 42 | 22-32 | 0-0 | 16-18 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 60 | |
| 11 | 49.8 | 4-29-1992 | Michael Jordan | at Miami Heat | 43 | 20-30 | 0-0 | 16-18 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 56 | First Round Playoffs |
| 12 | 49.7 | 4-12-1987 | Michael Jordan | vs Indiana Pacers | 42 | 19-27 | 0-0 | 15-18 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 53 | |
| 12 | 49.7 | 12-20-2005 | Kobe Bryant | vs Dallas Mavericks | 33 | 18-31 | 4-10 | 22-25 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 62 | |
| 14 | 49.6 | 11-30-1988 | Charles Barkley | vs Portland Trail Blazers | 41 | 13-16 | 0-1 | 15-20 | 9 | 13 | 22 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 46 | |
| 14 | 49.6 | 12-13-1994 | Willie Burton | vs Miami Heat | 43 | 12-19 | 5-8 | 24-28 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 53 | |
| 16 | 49.5 | 3-6-2000 | Shaquille O'Neal | at Los Angeles Clippers | 45 | 24-35 | 0-0 | 13-22 | 7 | 16 | 23 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 61 | |
| 17 | 48.6 | 4-20-1986 | Michael Jordan | at Boston Celtics | 53 | 22-41 | 0-0 | 19-21 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 63 | First Round Playoffs |
| 17 | 48.6 | 12-23-1992 | Michael Jordan | at Washington Bullets | 42 | 22-37 | 6-8 | 7-8 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 57 | |
| 18 | 48.0 | 1-16-1993 | David Robinson | vs Charlotte Hornets | 40 | 20-28 | 1-2 | 11-15 | 3 | 11 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 52 | |
| 20 | 47.9 | 1-21-1989 | Michael Jordan | vs Phoenix Suns | 41 | 20-28 | 0-0 | 13-15 | 1 | 13 | 14 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 53 | |
| 21 | 47.8 | 4-16-1987 | Michael Jordan | vs Atlanta Hawks | 41 | 22-38 | 0-3 | 17-21 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 61 | |
| 22 | 47.7 | 3-7-1996 | Michael Jordan | vs Detroit Pistons | 38 | 21-28 | 2-4 | 9-10 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 53 | |
| 23 | 47.6 | 3-4-1987 | Michael Jordan | at Detroit Pistons | 43 | 22-39 | 0-0 | 17-18 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 61 | |
| 24 | 46.9 | 3-18-1988 | Michael Jordan | vs Boston Celtics | 42 | 19-32 | 1-2 | 11-11 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 50 | |
| 25 | 46.8 | 12-22-1989 | Karl Malone | at Charlotte Hornets | 43 | 22-28 | 0-0 | 8-12 | 3 | 14 | 17 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 52 | |
| 26 | 46.7 | 1-15-1989 | Michael Jordan | vs Boston Celtics | 41 | 13-23 | 0-3 | 16-17 | 1 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 42 | |
| 26 | 46.7 | 3-23-1996 | Hakeem Olajuwon | vs Minnesota Timberwolves | 44 | 16-23 | 0-0 | 14-18 | 7 | 12 | 19 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 46 |
Famous quotes containing the words list, national, basketball, association, top, individual, game and/or scores:
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“In my public statements I have earnestly urged that there rested upon government many responsibilities which affect the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. The participation of women in elections has produced a keener realization of the importance of these questions and has contributed to higher national ideals. Moreover, it is through them that our national ideals are ingrained in our children.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
“The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed August 1789, published September 1791)
“O, ‘tis a parlous boy,
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.
He is all the mother’s, from the top to toe.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all—no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself—a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and
place avails not,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)