By TIM REYNOLDS
If the NBA has a magic number, it’s 100.
Wilt Chamberlain’s single-game scoring record. A perfect shooting percentage. And the rule pretty much seemed to be that if a team scored 100 points in a game, it probably was going to walk off the floor as a winner.
Not anymore.
Put simply, 100 doesn’t guarantee anything. Teams with at least 100 points are losing 45% of their games so far this season, the highest such rate in more than 50 years and nearly 10% higher than the league’s all-time average.
Orlando is 4-16 when scoring 100 points. Detroit is 6-14 in those games. Houston is 7-15. It’s just not enough to win in this NBA era, where defense might seem optional — teams insist that isn’t the case — and 20-point scorers appear to be everywhere.
Really. They
