For just over 20 years, the late great Kobe Bryant had the second-highest scoring game in NBA history. Bryant racked up 81 points for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006, and was just passed by Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo.
Adebayo scored 83 points for the Heat against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday and got a whole lot of backlash for the way he pulled it off. Bryant’s performance is still being held in higher regard in many corners, and former NBA player Rashad McCants believes he could have scored a lot more. McCants told The SportsRush that the Lakers icon could have gotten to 130 points if he so desired.
“There is a formula,” McCants declared. “Especially, when it comes to points per quarter, stopping the clock, shooting threes. Kobe Bryant knew this formula. He could have gotten at least 120, 130 points in a game if he wanted to.”
It was pointed out that if a player makes three layups, hits two three-pointers, and sinks four free throws in a quarter, that’s 16 points right there. You need to get 16 more, though, for 130, and that’s easier said than done.
McCants is suggesting here that Bryant could have scored another 50-odd points on top of the 81 in a game if he wanted to, and that seems absurd. If nothing else, fatigue would have stopped him from getting to 130, as he would have to put up a ridiculous number of shots.
In that 81-point game, Bryant went 28-46 from the field, 7-13 from beyond the arc, and 18-20 from the line. You’d be looking at a guard having to attempt well over 60 field goals in a game, and no backcourt player has ever done that.
The only player to attempt 60 or more, of course, is Wilt Chamberlain, who did it thrice. Most famously, Chamberlain went 36-63 from the field and 28-32 from the line when he set the single-game record by scoring 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962.
Even a player as dominant as Chamberlain in his era couldn’t come close to 130. That 100-point game was also the only time that he scored over 80 in a game. This is stating the obvious here, but getting close to triple digits is not easy. Bryant, or anyone else for that matter, wasn’t scoring 130 in a game.
This is not the first time that McCants has made a wild claim about scoring a lot of points in the game. Previously, it was about himself, though. McCants claimed he could have scored 81 points in a game like Bryant.
“Bro, I know this game to the teeth, and I study with the great n***a so he told me how to be the great n***a without having to say a f***ing word. N***a, get these numbers every quarter, no threes, no free throws, you guaranteed these points, then you put that in, I could get 81.”
Considering McCants had only three 30-point games in the NBA, with a career-high of 34 points, it is safe to say he was never getting to 81. In a way, you have to admire the confidence, though.
