Kobe's 81-Point Night_ Lakers vs Raptors

It's January twenty second, in two thousand and six at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The arena's packed as Kobe Bryant has been on a tear recently and they want to see what he's going to do next, But no one really expects the game that's about to happen. A monumentous game, the most points anyone's ever seen in an NBA game with their own eyes other than a few people that saw Wilt Chamberlain, when Kobe Bryant goes off against the Raptors for eighty one points, the second most points ever scored in an NBA game, and the most points scored in a televised game. Join us today as we dive into how this game happened and what it means, what it meant for the NBA and Kobe Bryant's legacy today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because eighty one points was my total for my basketball career. So first, let's see how we got to this game. See. This was the two thousand and five two thousand and six season, the team after Shaq left the Lakers, him and Kobe had a great dynasty, three NBA championship and two of the most dominant players playing together at the time. But they trade shack Away and they struggled so with the year before, they struggled under the coach Rudy Tomtanovich. And so they actually end up rehiring Phil Jackson, the coach from that dynasty years and he's trying to put together a team and he runs what's known as the triangle offense. We've heard this a lot. The problem is they don't really have triangle pieces. They have Kobe Bryant and you could say lamar Odom would be their next one. They got lamar Odem in the trade from Shaq along with Karan Butler, and those would be the two best players playing along with Kobe. And if you know those are the two best players, you're kind of struggling. Both were quality role players in their time, but neither was a star that could help Kobe. But they did have some promising young talent. Andrew Biden was a rookie this year, which he did go on to become an All Star become a great player, but he was a rookie and he was straight out of high school, just like Kobe was, but he was raw, so that didn't help either. They went ahead and signed Kwame Brown to help give them a center. He was number one pick, but he was never a number one pick style player. Devin George was a good quality wing to play along Kobe, along with Schmush Parker, who was a quality guard as well, and they filled it out with some middling players like Lou Qualton Jim Jackson. But this was not a roster built to make the playoffs, built to do anything. But when you have a player like Kobe, it means on any given night you can win. On any given year, you can make the playoffs and disrupt some things. So they relied heavily on Kobe Bryant, and he was doing pretty good, especially in January. In January sixth, they played the seventy six ers and he had forty eight points. The next game they played the Clippers, he had fifty points. The next game they played the Pacers, with forty five points twelve of his thirteen points. Leading up to this game he scored over thirty points. He was leading the NBA in scoring, averaging thirty four point eight points, and he was on surge, having them on eleven and four run he was completely locked in, so it made what happened on January twenty second not a surprise. It also helped that the Toronto Raptors were coming to play them after shortly training away Vince Carter, and they were piecing the squad together. Now. They did have a good young core. Chris Bosh was on this team. They just drafted Charlie Ville Nueva, who are going to be a good power forward in the league. And they had some quality veterans in Antonio Davis and Mike James. But they were not a playoff team yet. And they were not a playoff team yet. They had one budding superstar and nothing else, and so they weren't in the best of roles to be doing this at this time. They were looking more for a good draft pick rather than really competing extremely hard. So the game tips off and Kobe pretty much is doing what he normally does. He's what you would call a slow start for a historic night, but it's consistent with what the whole month has been. Kobe gets a quiet twelve in the opening period with pull ups, drives and free throws. It's really routine to him. Looks like he's headed for another forty maybe fifty point game. But despite that, the Raptors actually have the lead after the first quarter, up thirty six to twenty nine. So in the second he comes out and does about the same as he did the quarter before. He gets fourteen points, really leading the team. They're kind of almost doing away with the Trima offense. It's just get the ball to Kobe and let him cook a little bit. They're still trying to run an offense, but it's really not working. The best offense I have is getting in the ball to Kobe. So he ends up with twenty six points the end of half, but again they are down. They lose the quarter and they're down by fourteen and a half. So at this point everyone sees Kobe's having a good game, but they think maybe they got to change some things up at half, and they do. The Lakers decide to basically give the ball to Kobe. He's their only offense that's working. We'll focus on defense and giving him the ball as much as we possibly can. So no, it's a strategy that really works when you have a once in a generational talent. So they come out in the third quarter they're really trying to get as many rebounds, as many opportunities to really catch up being bound fourteen points. And then during the mid third quarter is when everything starts to shift. Kobe gets a steal, gets to pull up three, then the next position he hits a jumper. He's able to hit a pull up jumper and then drive on the following possession, and the crowd explodes, go on a six to zero run all by himself, and it really starts to take over this game, and no matter what the Raptors do, although they are able to raise their lead to eighteen at once, it quickly is drawn back down because Kobe is on fire. He's not only taking control of the offense, he's taking control of the entire game. He ends up making eleven of his fifteen shots, including four threes, and helps bring the lead to six heading into the fourth quarter. He's not only trying to just score, he's trying to win the game. So he heads into the fourth quarter up on the Raptors by six points, already has fifty three points. That's a good night for anyone in the NBA, ever, but he's not done. He's on fire. And what's interesting enough is despite this point Baraj. The Raptors aren't really changing their defense. They're playing him mainly one on one. They're not double teaming them. They're not changing anything really that's going on. They're just letting him score as much as he wants. But it's interesting that she the shift in the Lakers as they just give the ball to Kobe and walk away. They give him the space to do his magic, whether he needs to go one on one and drive against the guy or pull up and shoot a three. They're giving him the space and the crowd is going wild watching his point total go up and up and up, and they're wondering just how far he can go for the Lakers. At that point, the most points scored in the game was seventy one by Elgin Baylor, so everyone was watching this to see if he could set the record for the Lakers. And then everyone is announcing keeping track when he hit sixty, When he hit seventy, they make a huge cheer when he breaks the record. The fans are jumping MVP, MVP. But it keeps building and building, and it keeps going up. Seventy one, seventy three, seventy four. He builds it to seventy nine, then eighty one. The crowd is going crazy. Eighty one points. No one has scored over eighty points in the game since Wilked Chamberlain. And by this point the game is in hand. They are winning this game. He gets taken out of the game. The crowd cheers. It's an amazing moment. And he was taken out of the game with four minutes and twenty seconds left as they were winning by twenty points. No reason to leave him in there, although many think he could have been left in there and maybe, just maybe he could have a shot at the one hundred Chamberlain record. It would have been interesting to see what could have happened with that four minutes left, but at that point it was just padding stats. If the Raptors would have been a better team, it would have made it more competitive. He would have stayed in and continued to score, and who knows what would have happened. But it was a crazy moment for the Lakers and Kobe Bryant. It's admitted to his status. We all remember this game because we were all able to see this. The one hundred point game is special because it's one hundred points. It's the only triple digit one, but it loses its luster because there's no footage of it. There's barely anything we can connect to that game except for one photo, not even of the game. And so this connection to this eighty one points is so special because we can go back and you can go online and watch this game right now. You can watch it entirely and just see what happens. I suggest watching just the second half because it's amazing see just how much he dominates this game. So what happened after this game, Well, the Raptors would go on to miss the playoffs and get a good draft pick and struggle for a while. The Lakers would struggle for a little bit too, They're still trying to find their way after Shack. They would end up making the playoffs, finishing seventh in the conference this year, but they would lose in the first round of the playoffs in a seven game series against the Phoenix Suns. So they really pushed for a chance to move on in advance, mainly because of Kobe. Now, it would be a couple of years before they would get POW and go on to win another couple championships with Kobe, and he really did submit himself as one of the best scores ever. This eighty one point game really showed it. Sad thing is he was tragically lost his life in a helicopter accident a few years ago, and he was far too young, including losing his life with one of his daughters who was far too young as well. But he left a legacy with the Lakers, one of the last, you know, superstars to stay with one team entire career and that meant a lot, and not only stay with that team, but win multiple championships, and this game shows he was a true scorer. I want to thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please make sure you like and subscribe wherever you're at. That way, you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to miss the next one