Early in the 2000-01 season, Kobe Bryant went on a tear, starting to prove that he was the best non-big man in the NBA.
He scored a career-high 43 points on Dec. 1 in a big win over the San Antonio Spurs, even though he was ailing with an upper respiratory infection.
Five days later, he established another new career mark.
That night, the Los Angeles Lakers took on the Golden State Warriors in Oakland, California. The Warriors were a terrible team that year, but they did have forward Antawn Jamison, who was developing into an All-Star caliber scorer.
The game started to evolve into a shootout between him and Bryant. The latter had 16 points in the first half while Jamison put up 19 points.
Bryant turned things up in the third quarter, scoring 17 points as Los Angeles took a double-digit lead and looked on its way to victory. But Jamison kept the heat on by outscoring him 12-6 in the fourth quarter as the contest went into overtime.
There, Bryant had a dozen points, but his game-tying 3-point attempt at the buzzer was off, and the Lakers lost, 125-122.
Both Bryant and Jamison finished with 51 points in a duel for the ages, although Jamison shot 72.4% to Bryant’s 51.4%.
The Lakers superstar supposedly hogged the ball on that night, but he did notch eight assists.
It was the first 50-point game of Bryant’s career and a sneak preview of the 24 that would follow in the years to come.
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