The Biggest Blowout in NBA History

The biggest blowout in NBA history is the Memphis Grizzlies’ 152-79 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 2, 2021, a 73-point margin. It shattered a record that had stood for three decades, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 68-point win over the Miami Heat in 1991, and it remains untouched through the 2026 season.

Blowouts are usually forgotten by the next morning, but the biggest ones become historical curiosities, snapshots of a mismatch so severe it rewrites the record book. Below is a ranked leaderboard of the 12 largest margins of victory in NBA regular-season history, the story behind the record, a look at the separate playoff record, and why routs this lopsided happen.

NBA’s biggest blowouts: the full leaderboard

Every figure below is a final-score margin from a regular-season game, cross-checked against ESPN and Basketball-Reference.

Rank	Margin	Result	Date
1	73	Grizzlies 152, Thunder 79	Dec. 2, 2021
2	68	Cavaliers 148, Heat 80	Dec. 17, 1991
3	65	Pacers 124, Trail Blazers 59	Feb. 27, 1998
4	63	Lakers 162, Warriors 99	Mar. 19, 1972
5	62	Warriors 153, Kings 91	Nov. 2, 1991
6	62	Nationals 162, Knicks 100	Dec. 25, 1960
7	62	Thunder 139, Trail Blazers 77	Jan. 11, 2024
8	61	Hornets 140, Grizzlies 79	Mar. 22, 2018
9	60	Heat 142, Trail Blazers 82	Mar. 29, 2024
10	59	Bucks 143, Pistons 84	Dec. 26, 1978
11	59	Warriors 150, Pacers 91	Mar. 19, 1977
12	59	Clippers 126, Nets 67	Jan. 15, 2025

The record holder: Grizzlies 152, Thunder 79

Memphis was a healthy, ascending team; Oklahoma City was deep in a deliberate rebuild and missing several rotation players. The Grizzlies raced to an enormous early lead — they were up 78 points, 148-70, in the closing minutes — poured in a franchise-record 152 points behind nine players in double figures (Jaren Jackson Jr. led with 27), and rested their starters for much of the second half while the margin kept growing. Final score: 152-79, a 73-point gap no NBA game had ever produced.

The result was less about one dominant performance than a total mismatch: one roster near full strength, the other stripped down and overwhelmed. That combination is what it takes to break a record like this.

The old record: Cavaliers 148, Heat 80

For 30 years, the benchmark was Cleveland’s 68-point demolition of Miami on December 17, 1991. The Cavaliers were a strong Eastern Conference team; the Heat were an expansion franchise in only their fourth season. Cleveland led big at halftime and simply kept scoring. That the record survived three decades shows how extreme the circumstances have to be for a game to reach the high 60s, let alone 73.

The rest of the top five

Indiana’s 65-point rout of Portland on February 27, 1998 (124-59) is the third-largest margin ever and the biggest blowout of the 1990s not involving Cleveland. The Lakers’ 63-point demolition of Golden State on March 19, 1972 (162-99) came during Los Angeles’s record 33-game winning streak season, when the team’s pace and depth regularly buried overmatched opponents. Two games are tied at 62 points: Golden State’s 153-91 win over Sacramento in November 1991, and the Syracuse Nationals’ 162-100 Christmas Day rout of the Knicks in 1960 — a reminder that the fast, high-scoring style of the early NBA could produce margins nearly as extreme as anything the modern game has managed.

Why blowouts this big happen

Record-setting blowouts share a formula: one healthy, motivated team against a depleted, rebuilding, or tanking one; an early avalanche that removes any competitive tension; and a losing side that cannot slow the game down or match the pace. Rest days, injuries, and roster teardown all play a role in the modern examples — five of the twelve games on this leaderboard have come since 2018, as tanking and load management have become more common. When every factor lines up, the margin can balloon past anything a normal game produces.

The separate playoff record: 58 points

Playoff blowouts occupy a category of their own, because postseason opponents have already proven they belong. The largest margin in NBA playoff history is 58 points, a mark shared by two games three generations apart: the Denver Nuggets’ 121-63 win over the New Orleans Hornets in Game 4 of their 2009 first-round series, and the Minneapolis Lakers’ 133-75 win over the St. Louis Hawks in the 1956 semifinals. The next-closest playoff margins are the Lakers’ 56-point win over Golden State in 1973 and Cleveland’s 55-point win over Miami in 2025. As recently as April 2026, the Knicks’ 140-89 Game 6 rout of the Hawks came within seven points of the record, at 51 — the largest margin in Knicks franchise history and the largest playoff halftime lead ever recorded (83-36).

Could the record be broken? As of 2026

No game since December 2021 has come within 10 points of the Grizzlies’ 73-point margin, and the previous record stood for 30 years before it fell. Breaking it again would take the same rare alignment: a full-strength, motivated team catching a badly short-handed or tanking opponent on an off night. With modern load management and deeper rebuilds producing more mismatched rosters than in past eras, it is not impossible — five of the top twelve blowouts have happened since 2018 — but no team has come close as of the 2026 season.

These routs are the mirror image of the comebacks on our biggest comeback in NBA history leaderboard, where a huge deficit is erased rather than extended. They also tend to feature scoring surges like the ones on our most points in a quarter (NBA) list, and can push a team toward the point totals seen in the highest-scoring NBA game ever. For more record leaderboards and explainers, visit our basketball hub.

The short version: the Memphis Grizzlies’ 152-79 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 2, 2021 is the biggest blowout in NBA history at 73 points, breaking the Cavaliers’ 68-point win over the Heat from 1991. The largest playoff margin is 58, shared by the 2009 Nuggets and the 1956 Lakers, through the 2026 season.