Los Angeles Lakers: Top 8 Kobe Bryant moments
By Jason Elbaum
2. Scoring 81 points against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006
It was another frustrating season for the Lakers as they lacked the star power to pair with Kobe Bryant and make a run for another championship. The Lakers sat at 21-19 and welcomed a struggling Toronto Raptors team led by Chris Bosh to the Staples Center on a Sunday evening in January.
Los Angeles’s Canadian foes got off to a hot start as the Lakers struggled defensively in the first half and were down 63-49 at the break. Kobe had “only” 26 points in the first half, but the Black Mamba broke loose when the team came out of the locker room for the second.
Kobe shot an incredible 28-of-46 on the night and made 18 of his 20 free throw attempts. He scored 55 points in the second half to lead the Lakers all the way back for a 122-104 victory. The rest of the team shot just 33.3 percent, so it is certainly fair to use the cliche “putting the team on his back” in this context.
Even with the emergence of dominant scorers in the NBA such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, nobody has come close to matching Kobe’s 81-point performance in 2006. This game solidified Kobe as one of the most dominant scorers to ever take the floor in the NBA.