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Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-Point Game Changed the N.B.A.

OAKLAND, Calif. — On Sunday afternoon, Al Attles eased onto his living room couch next to his friend Tom Meschery, and they soon found themselves transported to March 2, 1962.

They were listening to an old radio broadcast, Meschery for the first time. For a few blissful minutes, Attles’s home in Oakland was filled with the smoky baritone of Bill Campbell, who was the play-by-play voice for the N.B.A.’s Philadelphia Warriors when Attles, 85, and Meschery, 83, were teammates.

“I remember thinking in the third quarter that something special was happening,” Meschery said.

That something special was Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia’s dominant center, scoring 100 points in a 169-147 win over the Knicks in Hershey, Pa.