Terrence Ross was just three points away from setting the NBA record for most points scored without recording a rebound, assist, steal, or block. That record is held by Allan Houston, who dropped 37 in that fashion back in 2000. That record is basically the holy grail for scoring-only players in the mold of Ross, the kind of players who have nothing to fall back on other than their scoring prowess. I know that there’s high-schoolers all across the world who are motivated by this game to go into the gym to practice not passing, not rebounding, and not playing defense late into the night.
Strangely enough, Ross tied for the second-highest “only points” statline with Bojan Bogdanovic, who also scored 35 points with no other stats in early January of this year. To have two players pull of a similar feat in such temporal proximity to each other is a true bellwether to what a scoring-focused league the NBA has become. Some purists and old-schoolers might thing that these super-high point totals are to be treated with disdain, but as somebody whose whole life is based around making videos of players who score lots of points, I say keep the points coming! Don’t pass! Don’t rebound! Just get buckets!
I do have to note at this point that my most recent Terrence Ross highlight video, which depicted him scoring 23 points in much the same manner as he scored points in this game (albeit at a lower raw volume), has barely gotten 250 views. If you genuinely are T-Ross fan, you’ll watch that video after you’re done watching this one, or maybe even INSTEAD of this one (performing such a selfless act would brand you as a true T-Ross devotee). Here, I’ll even put the link to the video here to make it as easy on you as possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPYZpwSpKmA