Wilt Chamberlain set the record for most points in a single game at 100, and no one has come close to it in the lengthy history of the NBA. In fact, aside from a few other players who scored 70 points along the way, Kobe Bryant’s 81 points against the Toronto Raptors in 2006 was the closest any player has ever come.
Some fans believe the record is unbreakable because it is so amazing. Though it’s not possible to go back in time, there was a good chance that someone else would have joined Chamberlain in the 100-point club if these three games had gone differently.
Lakers honor Kobe Bryant, dubbed “The Black Mamba.”
Even though Bryant’s 81-point performance in 2006 was amazing, it wasn’t his best attempt to surpass Chamberlain’s record. On December 20, 2005, a month prior, Bryant took his best shot against the Dallas Mavericks. Despite Bryant leading the Lakers by just nine points at the half, he had already scored 32 points on 61 percent shooting from the field.
Whatever the Mavs tried defensively, it was still ineffective in the third quarter. Bryant would finish the quarter with 30 points, but Phil Jackson decided to sit Bryant for the remainder of the game because the Lakers were ahead by 34 points going into the fourth quarter. Even a conspiracy theory that Jackson benching Bryant wasn’t the real deal was started by one of Bryant’s former teammates.
Klay Thompson of the Warriors surpasses Vince Carter on the all-time 3-point list.
When Klay Thompson defeated the Indiana Pacers on December 5, 2016, he equaled Bryant’s performance with 60 points in three quarters. Thompson completed the feat in less than thirty minutes of play and with just eleven dribbles. Can you envision if he performed for nearly forty minutes?
Leave a Reply