Jalen Brunson completed his ascension to NBA stardom last season with his electric offensive abilities leading the Knicks to 50 wins and the No. 2 seed in the East. Brunson was watching clips of Kobe Bryant‘s iconic 81-point game against the Raptors and was asked how he would try and guard Kobe in that situation, leading to a hilarious response.
“It’s scary when you get into a zone, when any player gets into the zone. You got to figure out a way to stop them and it usually involves two or three people… How would I stop Kobe? Me personally, I would call timeout and tell the coach to put someone else on him. I know my limitations for sure.”
"I would call timeout and tell coach to put someone else on him."@jalenbrunson1's gameplan for how he'd try to stop Kobe 🤣
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Given Jalen Rose had a reputation for being a good defender when Kobe put that performance on him, it’s hard to imagine what he could’ve done if he had a defender like Brunson on him. There’s no realistic situation where Brunson would guard Kobe in a one-on-one situation during an NBA game due to their size and positions, but it seems even Brunson knows he wouldn’t be a good cover for Kobe.
Bryant’s 81-point game still stands as the 2000s record for single-game scoring. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game seems destined to stay No. 1 but Kobe’s modern record has been threatened by players in recent seasons. We’ve seen Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns crack the 70-point barrier, and Luka Doncic score 73 points in a game last season.
Doncic stopped shooting in the fourth quarter of that game due to double teams leaving his teammates wide open, so we likely inch closer to seeing Kobe’s record fall with every passing season.
Kobe Bryant’s 81-Point Game Will Remain Historic
No matter what happens with Kobe’s 81-point record in coming years, the generation of fans that watched the game play out live will always remember it as one of the greatest single-game performances in the history of the sport.
Jalen Rose will always be remembered for being on the wrong side of that Kobe explosion, but even he has nothing but respect for what Bryant did that night against the Raptors.
“January 22nd, 2006. The NBA world, almost, saw history and that’s when Wilt Chamberlain’s record was challenged. It was a rotisserie. It was a buffet of guys that were on Kobe Bryant. But it didn’t matter. My opinion and I said it multiple times during the game, how about we consider double-teaming him? As a matter of fact, triple-team him… he never said a word. He never pointed and said ‘It’s all about me.’ Never talked trash.”
Kobe himself has talked about the basket feeling bigger that night because he was so locked in on making his shots.
“Yeah, I was just feeling emotional. The feeling I had was I could run all day, the basket is pretty big, didn’t feel like I was in one of those zones where the basket felt like a big bucket, the basket felt bigger and I could see everything that was going on before it was happening.”
Kobe ended that night with 81 points on 28-of-46 shooting, including 7-of-13 from 3-point range, and 18-of-20 from the foul line. It will be remembered as one of the greatest individual performances in the history of the sport.
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