The 7 most out-of-nowhere scoring outbursts this millennium

Devin Booker went supernova on the Celtics in the second half Friday night, giving excitement and purpose to what had looked like another ho-hum blowout loss for his tanking Suns.

By night's end, the Celtics were still victorious, but Booker, who still can't legally drink in the United States, had incredibly joined the NBA's elite 70-point club.

With that performance still fresh in mind, here, in chronological order, are the most surprising scoring outbursts of the 2000s.

Tony Delk: 53 points, Jan. 2, 2001

Previous career high: 27

Subsequent career high: 26

Scoring average that season: 12.3

Career average: 9.1

Delk was not just a middling scorer, but a bench player for most of his career, starting just 103 games and never more than 39 in a season. But he made the most of one of his 11 starts for the Suns in 2000-01, pouring in 53 - almost double what he reached in any other game in his career - in a loss to the Kings. It remains the third-highest scoring game this millennium without a made 3-pointer.

Brandon Jennings: 55 points, Nov. 14, 2009

Previous career high: 32

Subsequent career high: 37

Scoring average that season: 15.5

Career average: 14.5

Like Booker and others on this list, the surprise here was more about when than who. Jennings had turned 20 just six weeks earlier, and this was the seventh game of his career. The Bucks rookie had dropped 32 in the game before, but nothing could've portended an outburst like this so soon (if ever), especially since so many of his points came on mid- and long-range pull-up jumpers, from a guy who wound up shooting 37.1 percent from the field that season (and 38.9 percent in his career to date). He remains the youngest NBA player to reach the 50-point plateau.

Andre Miller: 52 points, Jan. 30, 2010

Miller had some fine scoring performances during his long and distinguished career, but he'd never cracked the 40-point mark, and his previous career high came nearly eight years earlier. In the six games that sandwiched Miller's 52-point gem, he scored just 43 combined. But on a winter night during his age-34 season with the Trail Blazers, the endlessly beguiling point guard emptied his bag of tricks in an overtime win over the Mavericks. He buried shots with a hail of floaters, herky-jerky drives, and mid-range pull-ups. He even hit a sweeping sky hook, and canned his lone 3-point attempt. It was an altogether inspiring performance, even if his methods didn't make for the most scintillating highlight package.

Terrence Ross: 51 points Jan. 25, 2014

Previous career high: 26

Subsequent career high: 27

Scoring average that season: 10.9

Career average: 9.6

There's been no shortage of prolific scorers in the annals of Raptors basketball, and yet Ross is tied for the franchise's single-game scoring record, while he and Vince Carter are still the only two Raptors to ever record a 50-plus-point game. Ross has always been a streaky shooter, but few could've predicted the streak he went on against the Clippers three years back, when he canned 10 threes and almost single-handedly kept the Raptors in a game that saw DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry combine for just 21 points.

Corey Brewer: 51 points, April 11, 2014

Brewer has always been more of a defensive disruptor and all-around havoc-wreaker than a scorer. His brand is chaos, and when you watch him recklessly bounding around the court colliding with stuff, it's sometimes hard to imagine him settling down enough to even put the ball in the hoop, let alone score 51 points. But Brewer harnessed his manic energy to do just that in one of the final games of the 2013-14 season, despite having never before scored even 30 in a game. True to form, he got nearly all his buckets on the break, aided by some terrific outlet passing from his Timberwolves teammates and his own six steals. His scoring tally matched a single-game Wolves record, which would be broken just nine months later by, of all people, Mo Williams. (Consider Williams an honorary mention.)

Kobe Bryant: 60 points, April 13, 2016

Kobe ranks third all time in NBA scoring, and owns the second-highest single-game total in history, but again, this is more about the when than the who. In the last game of his career, a 37-year-old Bryant who'd barely limped to the finish line of his final season - shooting 35.8 percent and mummifying himself in a suit of tensors and ice bags while on the bench - flung up 50 shots (and 21 threes) in an insane 60-point coda. It was the most field goals and 3-pointers Bryant had ever attempted in a game. It was also the highest-scoring individual performance in the NBA that season, and it matched the fifth-highest scoring total of Bryant's career. It also made him the only player 33 or older (let alone 37) to drop 60 in a game. Decent way to go out.

Devin Booker: 70 points, March 24, 2017

Previous career high: 39

Subsequent career high: ???

Career average: 17.6

Regardless of the circumstances, Booker becoming just the sixth player to ever reach the 70-point threshold - as a 20-year-old in his sophomore NBA season - is just ridiculous. He'd shown in the past that he could score in avalanches, with a pair of near-30-point quarters this season. But he'd still never managed even 40 points in a game, and against the Celtics he dropped 50 in the second half alone. The Celtics turned their noses up at the Suns force-feeding Booker at the end of a blowout loss, but it's not like his scoring was inefficient. He got his 70 on just 51 shooting possessions, and added in eight rebounds, six assists, three steals, and a block for good measure. Even if this is the beginning of a Hall of Fame career, it's unlikely Booker ever has another game like this.