With everything coming together, this could be the year for Kobe and crew.
It’s hard to imagine what it’s like for Kobe to score 52 points in a single night. To have a hot streak that is nearly half of your team’s total score for the game. And to know that your 52 point contribution helped your team squeeze out a 4 point victory in overtime against a newly energized Dallas team. For most players it would stand as a career-high that would never again be matched. But looking at his track record it seems more like just another day at the office.
Always the scoring threat, Dallas flipped through every page in their defensive playbook to try and shut down his game. And every time he managed to find the opening, the fatal flaw that broke down the double coverage and got him a look at the hoop. And in Sunday’s game he shot 15-of-27 from the floor including two 3s and drew key fouls that got him 20-of-27 from the line.
“We gave him a single look, then we double-teamed him, then we gave him a triple-team and he split the triple-team and scored,” said Dallas head coach Avery Johnson. “We tried to zone him, we tried to funnel him in the trap for a zone and he went the other way. He didn’t cooperate on any of our defenses.”
And when the game got hot, Kobe got even hotter. Not to be outdone by Dirk Nowitzki’s 30 points, Kobe put up 22 of his 52 points for the night in the fourth quarter and 8 more during the overtime battle. And just to make sure, he secured the win with 11 boards and 4 assists.
“To say one single thing did it, Kobe Bryant is probably the reason we didn’t lose,” LA’s coach Phil Jackson said.
Everyone talks about the big 81 point game from a couple years ago. Easily one of the most spectacular individual performances in the history of the game, it is not what Kobe will be remembered for. With his 22nd 50+ point game Sunday, his legacy will be of consistency, dedication and a love for the game that outshines any single night. His becomes a history of extraordinary performances, a scrapbook of the greatest highlights in the history of basketball, a collection of championship rings, gold medals, and maybe, just maybe, the league MVP award.
Perhaps in the end a Lifetime Achievement Award will be more fitting.
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