I MAY not have much material wealth to give away but the gift of love that I have inherited from the Lord Almighty is what I am sharing with friends and foes that I have crossed paths with in my more than six decades of earthly existence.
From A to Z, Merry CHRISTmas to all!
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Some of the most prolific individual scoring performances in National Basketball Association (NBA) history have come on Christmas Day.
On three occasions in the past, a player was able to rack up 50 points or more in a December 25 contest.
Bernard King, a 6-foot-7 forward, owns the all-time league standard for the highest-scoring Christmas Day game by an individual. King netted 60 points for the New York Knicks in a December 25, 1984 outing against the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets, the Knicks’ rivals across the Hudson River. However, New Jersey outlasted New York, 120-114, to disappoint a mammoth crowd at the (current) Madison Square Garden.
The legendary Wilt (The Stilt) Chamberlain has the second-highest Christmas Day offensive performance. In 1961, the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain poured in 59 markers and grabbed 36 rebounds for the Philadelphia (now Golden State) Warriors during a heartbreaking 136-135 double-overtime setback to the Knicks at the old Madison Square Garden.
Five years later in 1966, Rick Barry, another future Hall of Famer from the Warriors – who by the time had relocated to San Francisco – tossed in 50 points in a 124-112 win over the Cincinnati Royals, the predecessors of the Sacramento Kings. A 6-foot-7 frontliner, Barry went on to capture the NBA scoring title during the 1966-67 campaign as a sophomore pro.
Jerry West, whose silhouette is embodied in the NBA logo, was just three points short of reaching the 50-point plateau during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1963 Christmas Day match against the Knicks. A 6-foot-2 guard, West torched the Knicks for 47 markers in a 134-126 victory by the Lakers.