He Did What?!?

81… That number is going to have new meaning anytime it is brought up. Are you kidding? 81 points… 81 POINTS!!! Its already making waves across the country. How did it happen? Well, first off, the Lakers were losing (again). This time it was to the Toronto Raptors. Down by 18 points in the third.

When asked by ESPN what Bryant said at that stage, Odom replied: "Nothing. That's when it's bad."

Yeah, REAL bad.

He proceeded to put out a performance that can only be described, as… ok there is no description because no one has seen it before. 28-46 from the floor, 7-13 from behind the arc, 18-20 from the line. Do the math. Yeah we said that too. What it added up to was a performance that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time. More importantly it added up to a “W” for the Lakers over the Raptors 122-104.

“Its all about that W,” Kobe told reporters after the game.

His 81 points are second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100. Comparisons? Wilt was by far the most dominant player in his era. Doing his thing from the post, 3-5 feet away. Kobe is a GUARD he fought through traffic and dropped bombs from way out. This was different. A better comparison would be to the previous Laker record holder Elgin Baylor. Except that Baylor did it without the 3-point shot. Maybe there is no comparison.

Some say he takes too many shots ... (Kobe took 46 shots, the next highest was Smush Parker with 11)… yeah perhaps. Some say his game is sometimes not within the offense… ok that is true. Some say (including us here at LAist), he should get teammates more involved… that is also true (the next highest scorer was also Parker with 13). But sometimes, just sometimes, you get to see a performance like this and it makes everything ok. Which is fine… for now. We aren’t going to see this again for a while… at least we hope not.

That’s right… no more. History is great, but let's remember, that it is a TEAM out there. The Lakers cannot continue to count on 80 or 70 or 60 points a night from Kobe. Someone, ANYONE has to come and join the party. After all, it IS about the “W” and in order to get more of them, we are going to need less Kobe history and more TEAM history. Like the Phoenix Suns - Seattle Supersonics game. Did anyone catch THAT game? You think Ray Allen feels less of a player because he didn’t get 81? He also had a great game… against a MUCH better team than Toronto. His teammates showed up to play too, and guess what… Here’s the kicker: THEY WON THE GAME TOO! Amazing isn’t it? That’s the kind of history we like… and what the Lakers should be focusing on. Or the only comparison we will be talking about is Jordan the early years. Yeah remember that? Remember 63 against Boston? LAist remembers. We also remember that he lost that game too.

But hey, Kobe scored 81 points…