SUMMARY
- Kobe Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a game against the Toronto Raptors on January 22, 2006.
- Despite his historic achievement, Kobe Bryant initially avoided watching the game
Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers faced off against the Toronto Raptors on January 22, 2006. The guard/forward dominated the floor vs. the Raptors and led the team to a double-digit win against their opponents. It’s worth noting that Bryant’s stellar performance that night comes second to only one NBA legend, i.e. Wilt Chamberlain when he played for the Philadelphia Sixers in 1962.
‘Employee #8’ scored a career-high 81 points that night, with 55 in the second half and a massive 23-point score in the final minutes. As the Lakers unveiled the Kobe Bryant statue outside the Crypto.com Arena, it turned out that the pose of the image was a replica of what Kobe did later that night. However, it’s astonishing that the star of the California team was reluctant to watch his best game.
In an interview with ESPN that dates back to 2013, ‘Izzo’ revealed, “To this day, I’ve never seen that game. I don’t feel the need to watch it. What am I going to learn?” The iconic game in the Staples Center made a case for his electrifying caliber and sheer ‘Mamba Mentality.’
However, it was only days after that that the legend watched his stellar 81-point game. Furthermore, he even floated some hilarious tweets on his Twitter handle while watching the game.
KOBE’s hilarious tweets while watching his 81-point game for the first time https://t.co/UBjCCQkdPO pic.twitter.com/wCbq0IOb7e
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) January 22, 2024
Jalen Rose, the Toronto Raptors’ guard who was given the duty to guard Bryant that night, had nothing but praise for his classy play. Brant didn’t resort to any trash-talking, chest bumping, or even pointing in the crowd. What the NBA fan witnessed that night was a sheer display of classy play, it seems.
Kobe Bryant missed 18 shots while playing against the Toronto Raptors on January 22, 2006
Kobe Bryant recorded 81 points in his 42 minutes on the hardwood. He bagged 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, and 1 block. Furthermore, he registered 28 of 46 field goals and 7 of 13 3-pointers. Not only that, he could score 18 of 20 free throws. In total, he took 46 shots, while missing 18 goals from the deep, 6 3-pointers, and 2 free throws.
It’s worth noting that Bryant individually outsourced the team from Toronto in the second half, 55-41. Since Kobe has already recorded 40+ minutes in the last 4 games, the team didn’t let him clock more minutes on the hardwood. Well, the legend claims that he would have landed close to a 100-point score if only he had been on the floor for around 48 minutes.
Which Lakers player registered the second highest-scoring game after Kobe Bryant?
If one were to dig deeper into NBA history, one would find that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single NBA game. Kobe’s 81-point performance comes second to this score, and no Lakers players could amass a score more than this one.
However, two players could manage to score a decent 71-point performance and a 66-point performance. Elgin Baylor scored 71 points vs. the New York Knicks on November 15, 1960. He became the second Laker to amass a massive score in a single game. And then again, it was Wilt Chamberlain’s 66-game performance vs. the Phoenix Suns in 1969.