36 years ago today: The Suns score an NBA-record 107 points in a half and beat Paul Westhead’s Nuggets 173-143

Thirty-six years ago today, on Saturday, November 10, 1990, the Phoenix Suns led the Denver Nuggets 107-67 at halftime. No NBA team had ever scored 100 points in a half, and no team has done it since. Phoenix won 173-143 at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, tied the league record for points in a regulation game and gave Cotton Fitzsimmons his 700th coaching victory.

The Suns did not make a three-pointer all night. They went 0-for-2 from deep and still put up 173, because Denver’s new system gave them almost as many open layups as they wanted.

Paul Westhead’s experiment

Denver had hired Paul Westhead that summer from Loyola Marymount, where his teams pressed full court, shot within seconds and regularly scored more than 120 points. He brought the same idea to the NBA and called it “2001, A Space Odyssey.” The Nuggets shot fast and pressed everywhere, and they gave up layups at the other end.

The first week went badly. Denver lost its opener 162-158 to Golden State, then lost at Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, then lost at home to Seattle. Three nights before Phoenix, the Nuggets had led San Antonio 90-83 at halftime, which at the time was the record for points in a first half, and still lost 161-153. They arrived in Phoenix at 0-5, playing for the second night in a row.

Fifty, then fifty-seven

Phoenix made 17 of its first 19 shots and led 50-37 after one quarter, tying the NBA mark for points in an opening quarter. Fitzsimmons went to his bench early, and the second unit was even better. Kenny Battle’s three-point play with 3:31 left in the half gave Phoenix its 91st point and broke the first-half record Denver had set three nights earlier.

Cedric Ceballos, a rookie forward from Cal State Fullerton, scored 22 of his 32 points in the second quarter. Phoenix scored 57 in that period, beating the second-quarter mark of 52 that Baltimore had held since 1965. The Suns went into the locker room at 107-67, with NBA records for field goals in a half (43) and assists in a half (33), and the two teams’ 174 combined points were also a record for a half.

The run at 200

At halftime the only question was whether Phoenix could become the first NBA team to score 200 points. It did not. The Suns scored 30 in the third quarter and led 137-110 going into the fourth, then scored 36 more to finish at 173. That tied the record for a regulation game that Boston had set against the Minneapolis Lakers in 1959.

“I think we could have done it, got the 200,” said Kevin Johnson, who had 23 points and 17 assists in 34 minutes. “But we sputtered a little in the third quarter.”

• Shooting: Phoenix went 67-of-104 from the field (64.4 percent), 0-of-2 from three and 39-of-48 at the line. The 67 field goals were a franchise record.
• Passing: 50 assists on 67 baskets. Johnson had 17 and Dan Majerle 13.
• Balance: Six Suns scored at least 16. Ceballos had 32 on 12-of-15 in 23 minutes. Johnson and Battle had 23 each, with Battle adding 10 rebounds off the bench. Majerle had 21, Tom Chambers 20 and Mark West 16 on 8-of-8.
• The total: The teams combined for 316 points, four short of the regulation record of 320 that Denver and Golden State had set eight days earlier.

Denver’s side of the box score

Denver scored 143 points and lost by 30. Orlando Woolridge scored 40 on 14-of-24 shooting and 12-of-13 at the line. Chris Jackson, a rookie guard who later took the name Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, came off the injured list for his first game of the season and scored 26 in 25 minutes. Walter Davis added 22. Even so, the Nuggets fell to 0-6.

It did not get much better. Denver lost 155-129 at Portland three nights later and did not win until November 15 against Minnesota. The Nuggets finished 20-62, last in the league. They led the NBA at 119.9 points a game and gave up 130.8, which is still the most points per game any NBA team has allowed over a season. Westhead was out after the following season.

What still stands

In the 36 years since, the league has gone through the slowdown of the 1990s and the three-point boom that followed. Teams now take more than 35 threes a game, and nobody has scored 107 in a half. The Suns did it without a single three, on layups, dunks and short jumpers off the break.

For Phoenix, the night was the high point of a team that had reached the Western Conference finals the previous spring. Johnson was the point guard, Chambers and Majerle were on the wing, and Fitzsimmons became only the seventh coach in league history to reach 700 wins. Johnson later went home to Sacramento and served two terms as mayor. In Phoenix, the 173-143 game against Denver is still the highest-scoring game the franchise has played.