Key Highlights
- 1 crowning achievement, a feat so absurd that it overshadowed both the AFC and NFC Championship Games.
- Don't believe me?
- Watch Stuart Scott's intro to ESPN's SportsCenter from that very day. The basics are burned into the cerebral cortex of even casual fans. He scored 81 points. It came against the Raptors. He did most of the damage against Jalen Rose. Rose and Bryant made a commercial about it. LeBron even claims he called it (LOL, decide for yourself, I guess)The NBA's YouTube page includes a Kobe highlight package showing every made shot, a 3-minute clip now with over 11 million views and 13,000 comments.20 years later, the box score and play-by-play still seem doctored, something out of a 2K game on easy difficulty.
- I'm a recovering researcher and stats guy from a former life and so naturally the massive nerd in me decided to take a closer look in search of some hidden insight. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHere's what I found. MORE:5 things you missed from Wilt's 100-point game Kobe was not the game's leading scorer for first 10:30It's hard to imagine that someone who finished with 81 points wasn't actually the game's leading scorer from the jump. In a year he averaged a career-high 35.4 points per game (and got absolutely hosed in 2006 MVP voting, a debate for another day), Bryant predictably had many torrid starts.
- In fact, he had nine games in which he scored at least 15 in the first quarter...