Liz Cambage: Unprecedented
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Liz Cambage’s 53 points Tuesday in a 104–87 victory over the NY Liberty captured the mainstream media’s attention and drew headlines far and wide. Cambage set a new league record for the most points scored in a single game. In just 37 minutes of play, Cambage also had 10 rebounds, 5 blocked shots, 2 assists and 1 steal.
Possibly even more impressive (if that’s even possible) is the efficiency with which she scored her 53 points. She finished the game 17 for 22 from the field, including 4 for 5 from beyond the arc. She was also 15 of 16 from the charity stripe. Two of her free throws were ‘and-one’ opportunities leaving her with 7 free-throw trips when she tried to shoot and was fouled. As a result, it took her just 29 scoring attempts (22 field-goal attempts and 7 attempts that turned into free-throw trips) to score 53 points. That works out to a remarkable 1.83 points per scoring attempt.
Amazingly, Cambage also did not record a turnover despite her high volume. Therefore, she only “used” 29 plays for the Wings with a scoring attempt or turnover. Her 1.83 points per play is stellar.
Here at Her Hoop Stats, we were so impressed with Cambage we spent our evening digging into stats trying to find comparable performances in American professional basketball history. Here’s what we found:
No high scoring WNBA player has been as efficient
We looked back at the other top scoring games in WNBA history to see if anyone has matched her efficiency. Looking at players who have recorded 45 points or more in a single WNBA game, no one has even approached her mark. Riquna Williams and Elena Della Donne both scored about 1.6 points per scoring attempt, while only Williams managed 1.6 points per play. Cambage’s efficiency was 14% better than the previous mark for high scoring WNBA games.
No high scoring NBA player has been as efficient
With no comparable single game performance in the WNBA, we thought we’d expand our search to the NBA. Still, we couldn’t find a similarly efficient high-scoring game. Since the WNBA began play in 1997, only 8 times has an NBA player matched Cambage’s 53 points in 37 or fewer minutes. On November 5th, 2017, James Harden scored 56 points on 30 scoring attempts and the added benefit of a technical free throw. That works out to 1.87 points per scoring attempt or 1.83 if you exclude the technical.
However, Harden had 7 turnovers that night. As a result, he scored “only” 1.51 points per play, well below Cambage (and Riquna Williams). Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson have come closer in their scoring outbursts, but no recent NBA player can match Cambage when it comes to volume and efficiency.
Has any NBA or WNBA player ever been as efficient as Cambage in a high scoring game? Not since the NBA started tracking turnovers for the 1983–84 season. Only 4 NBA players headlined by Michael Jordan have scored more than 1.6 points per play when scoring 53 or more points in a game. Worth noting, Karl Malone was the only one to do it in less than 40 minutes of playing time when he scored 61 points in just 33 minutes.
Tuesday was a remarkable day for Liz Cambage. Not only did she make the 2018 All-Star game, she left her mark on basketball history.
If you like this content, please support our work at Her Hoop Stats by subscribing for just $20 a year.
All stats were compiled from WNBA.com and basketball-reference.com
