The Biggest Blowout in NBA History

The biggest blowout in NBA history came on December 2, 2021, when the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 152-79, 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.

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. Here is the full leaderboard of the most lopsided games in NBA history, the story behind the 73-point night, and why these routs happen. All figures are through the 2025 season.

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, poured in 152 points, and rested their starters for much of the second half while the margin kept growing. Final score: 152-79, a 73-point gap that no NBA game had ever produced.

The result was less about a single 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 full leaderboard of the biggest NBA blowouts

The table below ranks the largest margins of victory in NBA history, with the record playoff blowout included for context.

Rank	Margin	Result	Type	Date
1	73	Grizzlies 152, Thunder 79	Regular season	Dec 2, 2021
2	68	Cavaliers 148, Heat 80	Regular season	Dec 17, 1991
3	62	Nationals 162, Knicks 100	Regular season	Dec 25, 1960
4	58	Nuggets 121, Hornets 63	Playoffs (record)	Apr 27, 2009

The top of the list is a mix of eras, from the Syracuse Nationals’ Christmas Day rout in 1960 to the modern Grizzlies-Thunder game. The Nuggets’ 58-point playoff win stands apart as the most lopsided postseason result, where evenly matched opponents make such margins far rarer.

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 by 40 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 historic blowouts of earlier eras

Before either modern record, the 1960s produced its own lopsided classics. The Syracuse Nationals’ 162-100 win over the New York Knicks on Christmas Day 1960 was a 62-point demolition fueled by the fast, high-scoring style of the era, when teams routinely topped 120 points a night. Those older blowouts often reflected pace as much as mismatch: with far more possessions per game, a dominant team could pile up an enormous total before the final buzzer. The modern Grizzlies-Thunder result is different in character, built on a depleted opponent rather than a track-meet tempo, which is part of why it stands out even among the biggest routs ever recorded.

Playoff blowouts occupy a category of their own. Because postseason opponents have already proven they belong, a 58-point margin like Denver’s 121-63 win over New Orleans in 2009 is arguably more shocking than a regular-season rout of a rebuilding team. It is the largest gap the playoffs have ever produced, and it has never been seriously challenged.

Why blowouts this big happen

Record-setting blowouts share a formula: one healthy, motivated team against a depleted or rebuilding one, an early avalanche that removes any competitive tension, and a losing side that cannot slow the game down. Rest days, injuries and tanking all play a role in the modern examples. When every factor lines up, the margin can balloon past anything a normal game produces.

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.

Why the record matters

The biggest blowout in NBA history is a reminder of just how wide the gap between the best and worst nights can be. The Grizzlies’ 73-point win over the Thunder captured a perfect mismatch and broke a record that had lasted a generation. It will take another extreme collision of a healthy team and a depleted one to top it.

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, by the Nuggets over the Hornets in 2009, through the 2025 season.