Two facts that paved the way for Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game
Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points in 1962 will most likely forever be the NBA single game record. No one has come close to his score, although who knows what Kobe Bryant could have done with six extra minutes.
The most fun basketball fact from my childhood was when in January 2006, Bryant and Smush Parker together scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, with the latter having zero points to show for. Why I remember the evens this way, I don’t know, but the knowledge etched in memory as a real incident was not in fact true.
Because Bryant scored those 81 points. Alone.
Parker also got the taste of it several times in the legendary match, but was limited to 13 points. It is interesting to note that Bryant considered his teammate to be anything but a good basketball player and later said that Parker should not have played in the NBA at all. “We were too tight to hire a point guard. So we allowed him to come to the Lakers,” said one of the best players in history.
As the score suggests, Bryant was on a rampage against the Raptors. True, he had no other option, because the Lakers of the 2005/06 season were not on par with their high standards. Yes, 45 wins in the regular season redeemed a pass to the playoffs, but there they lost to the Phoenix Suns in the first round with 3:4 games.
In retrospect, the Lakers making it to the playoffs is even surprising. By and large, only the role players played next to Bryant, the only star-like baller next to the leader was the forward Lamar Odom, whose average playing time in the regular season was as much as 40.3 minutes.
So Bryant had to carry the Lakers. Not quite alone, but almost.
Storm warning against the Mavs
Bryant had already made several brilliant plays that season before meeting the Raptors. He had a string of 30 or 40 point games, and a month and two days before crushing the only Canadian club, he treated the Dallas Mavericks to a whopping 62 points in just 33 minutes. Thanks to the career of his father Joe, a professional basketball player, the American, who also lived in Italy as a child, was so hot that he did not give a single assist.
But if you score 62 points and your team wins by 22, there’s no need to find teammates.
The Raptors were an oddball in the 2005/06 season statistically. They had one of the best offenses in the NBA, led by Chris Bosh, who had the best season of his young career, but the defense was sloppy. They averaged 104 field goals, which was the second-lowest in the league.
The final result of the season of the team coached by Sam Mitchell was therefore anything but surprising, because you can win matches with attack, but great success is achieved with defense: the Raptors lost 55 of 82 games and were 13 wins away from the Milwaukee Bucks, who were the last to qualify for the playoffs.
At the same time, expectations were even lower, as the Raptors won only one of the first 16 games…
In the second half of January, an away tour awaited the Raptors, where five matches were played in six days. The first two games were lost, in the third, Bosh, who collected 29 points and 13 rebounds, won against Seattle SuperSonics, and from there he was flown to Los Angeles.
The 18,997 people gathered at Staples Center on the night of 22nd of January expected two things: for the Lakers to return to winning ways after two losses, and for Bryant to do something big – to give the audience a stellar dunk or a super heavy fadeaway.
Instead, they got all that and much more!
A basket like an ocean
The first half was difficult for the Lakers. After 24 minutes, the Raptors were leading by 14 points, although Bryant was successful on offense in terms of scoring: he had a combined 26 points.
At best, the Raptors led by 18 in the third quarter, but in the fourth quarter, Bryant took the Lakers on his shoulders, scoring 23 points in the last nine minutes of the game and securing an 18-point victory for the hosts.
In those nine minutes, the basket was like an ocean for Bryant. The legend was on the move, and although the Raptors tried to slow him down in every way, it was simply not possible.
If sometimes powerful scoring performances in the NBA are born inefficiently, Bryant had fun with the Raptors poor defense. He hit 21 out of 33 two-pointers, seven out of 13 three-pointers, and made 20 free throws, of which only two missed the rim.
Two necessary things lined up for an 81-point game that night: One of the NBA’s most skilled man had fun against a very poor defense, and he did it largely by himself because his teammates weren’t up to par.
Bryant, who rapped the Raptors for 42 minutes, was one of only three Lakers players to score double-digit points. One of them was Parker, despised by the leader, the other was center Chris Mihm, who scored 12 points.
In many ways, the Raptors’ game epitomized Bryant’s own season. His average point score in the regular season was the most powerful of his career – 35.4 – and if on the one hand the player himself was excellent, on the other hand, due to the quality of his teammates, he had no other option but to take a lot of the attack on his own shoulders.
If Chamberlain’s top mark will most likely not be broken, reaching Bryant’s result would not be exactly a miracle. Last year and this year, four men have scored at least 70 points, the king of the quartet is Luka Doncic who treated the Atlanta Hawks with 73 points in January of this year.
And looking at the corresponding ranking, it seems that January is the top month for setting the basket nets on fire. Donovan Mitchell’s 71 points and Joel Embiid’s 70 points also came in the first month of the year.
So, in January 2025, it’s worth keeping an especially close eye on the NBA, because someone might push Bryant from the heels of Chamberlain, into the third place instead.
