Jan. 22, 2006 at Staples Center was the night of Los Angeles Lakers legendary guard Kobe Bryant's career-high 81-point outburst against the Toronto Raptors. Jalen Rose, who was one of the starting guards for the Raptors that game, witnessed Bryant score the second-most points ever scored in an NBA game.
Rose has gotten a bad rep over the years for his defense, but Bryant wants everyone to know that this was not Rose's fault.
This week, Bryant was interviewed by Rose for ESPN and the topic of his 81-point game came up.
“I heard a story and it didn't make me happy,” Rose said, holding one of Bryant's shoes that he plans to re-release with Nike. “That you wore this shoe on a night when you scored 81 points in a basketball game. I happened to be present that night, but you probably didn't see me because I was looking at the back of head, your name and number the whole night.”
Bryant began to crack up and talked about that night and why he wanted to re-release this particular shoe.
“That night was very special and the fact I was playing in the (Kobe) 1 makes that shoe have added significance,” Bryant said. “I think the shoe ended up itself in the way it was built, with the stitching going around the swoosh, we wanted to have a feeling of it being handmade because it felt like I was building my game anew. Which then led to 81 and all the other games that I had because I was in the gym really, really working hard. The shoe has special significance to me because of that.”
The 81-point game that The Black Mamba had during the Lakers' 122-104 win over the hapless Raptors was already over 12 years ago. Lonzo Ball was only turning nine years old during that time. Feeling old yet?
Of course, that fateful 2005-2006 season was the most prolific year in Bryant's 20-year career. He averaged a career-high 35.4 points per game.
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