Nylon Calculus: Most surprising NBA scoring performances of the decade

1. C.J. Watson, 33 points vs. Denver Nuggets

Fun Facts:

Looking for video was my first indication that there was something very weird about this game. Despite being far-and-away the most surprising scoring performance of the last decade, there’s hardly any video proof this game exists. It’s the only game in the top 10 without a true highlight video.

Two months prior, professional boxer Floyd Mayweather learned that C.J. Watson had been sleeping with Josie Harris, his then-girlfriend and mother of his children. After violently assaulting Harris, Mayweather reportedly told her that he was going to kill her and Watson and make them both disappear.

Mayweather posted bail the next night and would not serve time until over a year after the assault. This meant that Mayweather was a free man on Nov. 26, 2010, when Watson laced them up against the Denver Nuggets. Floyd decided to attend a basketball game that day — thankfully, it was on the other side of the country, where Floyd watched the 76ers face off against the Miami Heat. No one in that game — not LeBron James, not Dwayne Wade, not Chris Bosh, not even Marreese Speights would score as many points as Watson did later that night.

Derrick Rose was in the midst of his MVP season and was supposed to start that night; however, it was announced that Rose would sit out with neck spasms. Instead, C.J. Watson would have to take the place of the Bulls’ eventual MVP.

Watson averaged 4.94 points in the 2010-11 season. On Nov. 26, 2010, he scored more than six times that average. In fact, Watson never scored even half as many points in the Bulls’ 81 other games that season as he did that night. Watson entered the matchup coming off of a two-point performance and would proceed to score a whopping zero points the following night.

And yet C.J. Watson pulled through, and the Bulls found themselves down 94-91 to the Nuggets with 1:45 remaining. Having already dropped 27 points in the game, Watson proceeded to hit three straight shots to put the Bulls up 97-94. Carmelo Anthony then hit two free throws to make it 97-96 Chicago. The ball was back in the Bulls’ hands. It went to John Lucas III, a player who was not on a professional basketball team 24 hours earlier — he had been signed and flown out to Denver earlier that day. Lucas missed each of his two free throws. This gave the Nuggets the ball with 12.9 seconds remaining. Carmelo Anthony got the basketball, employed his classic jab step, and hit the game-winning buzzer-beater to erase C.J. Watson’s magic moment from history.

Watson had to compete with a death threat, the job of filling in for the eventual MVP, a player trusted to hit free throws who had not been on the team 12 hours prior, and a buzzer-beating shot from Carmelo Anthony. And all we have to show for it is two minutes of footage that makes you question if 144p is really the lowest upload quality that YouTube allows.

It seems the basketball gods never meant for this game to happen. And yet, miraculously, it did.

Favorite Shot:

Seeing as most of the footage is missing, I can’t be sure that this is actually my favorite shot. Still, I’ll go with Watson’s layup that put the Bulls up three with 30 seconds remaining.

Shot Chart: