You may not like him but… this was phenomenal. From the front page coverage in the LAT:
Jackson, who coached Jordan and played against Chamberlain, called Bryant’s performance “something to behold.”
“I wasn’t keeping track on what he had, and when I turned to [assistant Frank Hamblen] and said, ‘I think I better take him out now,’ … he said, ‘I don’t think you can. He has 77 points,’ ” Jackson said. “So we stayed with it until he hit 80.”
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It’s a great achievement (particularly because it was in a winning cause), but I do think back fondly to the days when you could say that “fifty-eight players have scored fifty or more points in an NBA game, and fifty-six of them have been named Chamberlain” (I may have the numbers a bit wrong).
I think it was 60 points, Jim. Baylor & Mike each had a game in the 60′s. Probably 20 or more guys over 50.
It’s still a question who’s the best team in L A isn’t it? Two predictions: Lakers never win another championship with only Kobe. (Shaq was integral to the latest 3). Miami goes way farther into post season than the Lakers this year. If Kobe doesn’t progress pretty soon, Wade passes him as the best player in the NBA (Duncan close in there, too), because he “gets it”.
Kobe is a remarkable raw talent, among the best ever, but he still doesn’t “get it”. He needs to study the NBA’s assassins, Mike and Russ, single-minded, focussed, team-oriented WINNERS who did whatever was necessary to carry their teams. MLK day reminded me how remarkable Russell was. Eleven NBA championships! Two undefeated college seasons and NCAA championships. He deserves any accolade he gets as one of the top two players ever, along with Mike.
BTW, Wilt AVERAGED 50 ppg one year. Also led the league in assists one year in response being criticized as “only” a scorer. Russ had his number, though, because…..see above. In head-to-head with arguably one of the top 3 or four players ever, Russell’s record v. Wilt was really lop-sided in Russell’s favor. Real battles of Titans.
Larry -
You may well be right about sixty points being the threshold, or it may be that when I first heard it (circa 1970), Chamberlain had all but two of the games in which one player had scored fifty or more points. I’m not sure.
Larry -
Agreed
1) Heat will of course go farther than the Lakers in the playoffs, though that’s not saying much.
2) There is no comparison between Shaq and Kobe.
3) Nobody, his own teammates especially, likes Kobe. Jordan was tough but eventually his teammates liked and at least respected him.
4) Of course the reason the Lakers won was mainly Shaq.
5) Of course Duncan is a winner and the 1rst guy you’d want right now to build a franchise.
However -
a) Right now the Heat are overrated.
b) The Heat let go core pieces and roll players last year on a team that fit well together and should have beaten the Piston had Wade not gotten injured.
c) Heat now have a lot of individual talent/pieces that don’t all fit as of yet.
d) Riley did the same thing with the Knicks, Charles Smith ring any bells.
e) Shaq may only have 2 to 3 years left tops.
f) The best team in the NBA right now is clearly the Pistons.
Mike, I can’t argue with any of your sharp analysis of Riley and the Heat. You pegged it. The only good thing is, it’ll be good for Wade’s growth. Lawdy, I love to watch that kid play!
Has anyone ever mentioned that Type Key sucks?
Have I mentioned that Dwayne Wade is something special?
And when Chamberlain did it they didn’t have any 3 point shots.
What does the word phenomenal mean?
And when Chamberlain did it they didn’t have any 3 point shots.
On the other hand, there were perhaps 20% to 25% more points scored in an average game than there are today.
I don’t want to minimize Chamberlain’s achievement. He was probably the most dominating player I’ve ever seen. It’s just that it’s very difficult to compare players from different eras.
Great achievement, especially because it occured in a winning game. But Mike is right about f). Right now the Pistons are the best. It’s still a long time till playoffs, but they are really fun to watch.
Love watching the Pistons, too. They “get it”. Rasheed Wallace is another example of a great talent who eventually “got it”. BTW, it took Mike a few years, too. He had the fire and the spectacular talent from the beginning, but somewhere along in his 3rd or 4th year you could see the “AHA!”. Russell knew it in college, maybe high school.
Just so everyone knows what I mean, “it” is: I may be the best and meanest damn player in the universe, but I am one of five players on my team. If I want to win, I have to make my team the best it can be. If that means in any game or part of it, the othrer guys can contribute materially, I’ll want them to and help them to do it. If my team needs one part of my talent and not others at any point, that’s what they get. If I must dominate the game at some point, I’ll do that, too. I’ll push them as hard as I can to do it right and play their hardest. All team games are like this, but basketball at its best is, to me, beautiful poetry when you see all the parts come together. Examples: Mike in the 6th game of finals, last 2 minutes at Utah. Mike, Scotty, Harp and the Worm literally shutting the other team down. The Celts funneling everything to where Russ would swat any shot attempt to a teammate. (Russ always said a block wasn’t worth much if your team didn’t get the ball. Pity they didn’t keep track of blocked shots in his era. He is only 6′ 9″!)
I don’t get,Roger.The man scores 81 pts.,and most of the sportswriters try to denigrate it(“aw,it was Toronto,at home…blah,blah!).Like him or hate him,give Kobe his due:this was one for the ages.
Why do we bother checking the keep me signed in to TypeKey thangy?
Wilt was universally maligned, too. Idiots figured any 7′ 1″ “bully” ought to be able to score 100 points at will. Kobe’s 81 is 2nd all-time. Now he has 2 of the 100 60 or over, Mike and Baylor 1 each, Wilt’s down to only 96. Lol, po fella!
Reminds me of a story I read about Elvin Hayes’ (Kareem’s contemporary and also top 50 all-time) first encounter with Wilt. He got the ball deep and leaped for a slam, but ran into a tree. The “tree” was Wilt’s forearm, immovable. Result: charging foul. E wound up on his butt and said he hurt the rest of the game. One of Wilt’s attributes was his amazing strength for a tall, skinny- looking dude. At 7′ 1″ or 1 1/2″ (I’m old and memory fails.), he weighed around 300#, but you sure couldn’t tell looking at him. Must have been about 1/2% body fat.
CW had it that Wilt and Russ hated each other. All hype. 6-7 years ago, before Wilt died anyway, Bob Costas interviewed the two of them together. They both said they were best of friends and most often visited each others’ homes or at least went out and ate together before or after their games. You could see that they had genuine respect and liking for each other as well as gleams in their eyes that they’d been able to pull off the hype for years and years. It sold tickets. I think Russ was laying mind-rays on Wilt during those encounters.
I apologize for rambling on and on OT, Roger and everyone. One thing (OK, OK, two) to add to the Wilt/Russ thing, then I’ll shut my pie hole. Re the mind-rays: How else could a skinny, 6′ 9″, 240ish #er get the best of the “bully” time after time? Paraphrasing both of them about the hype: “In the arena, he is my sworn enemy whom I’m bound to destroy any way I can. That’s what the public saw. Away from the arena, we could talk and laugh together for hours.”
Great day for Kobe and the NBA on Sunday to cap an interesting week (Lakers were 2-2) in which, on Monday, Shaq acknowledged Kobe 3 times (just in case nobody was paying attention) before the Lakers-Heat game and Charles Barkley, during TNT coverage of that game, told us we should all be grateful that we have two nice guys (Shaq and Tim) playing in the NBA right now.
By the way (assuming my source is correct), this was the 56th time in NBA history that a player has scored 60 or more points in a game. 32 of those times it was done by, in my view, the most dominant individual player the team sport has known. He scored 50 or more points in 118 games.
Confirmation from the Los Angeles Times that this was the 56th time a player has scored 60 or more points in a game and, as they list them all, I can now report that when Wilt last did it (66 points against Phoenix on 2/9/69*) he had done it 32 of the 38 times it had been done and he and his Lakers teammates Elgin Baylor(3) and Jerry West(1) had done it 36 of the 38 and the last 36 times it had been done.
Joe Fulks did it first in 1949 and George Milkan did it next in 2 overtimes in 1952. The next 2 times it was done it was Elgin’s first two. Wilt did it for the first time on 3/9/61 when he scored 67. Then on 12/1/61 Wilt scored 60 against the Lakers. A week later Wilt scored 78 and Baylor scored 63 (his third) in the 3-overtime rematch. Wilt scored 61 the next night against the Bulls. He would score another 60 against the Lakers on the 29th and then score at least 60 another 11 times in the next 63 or so days.
*I well remember this game. Later that year the Lakers fell to the aged and Russell player-coached Celtics again in what remains the most heartbreaking NBA finals in this usually-a-Lakers-fan’s life. Expansion Phoenix went on to lose the most fateful coin toss in NBA history a few months later and expansion Milwaukee drafted Lew Alcindor. A year later the Knicks won in 7…a year later and Kareem and the Bucks were champions…a year later and without Baylor (who retired without an NBA Championship 9 games into the season) the Lakers won one for the first time since coming to Los Angeles. The next time this would happen Kareem would be in Los Angeles and the Lakers would have drafted first the year before. Showtime had arrived.
In the meantime Barry, Maravich, Gervin and David Thompson had scored 60 or more in a game.
Finally, from the Los Angeles Times the second and last time 2 players scored 60 or more on the same day:
Thompson [Denver] and San Antonio’s George Gervin were battling for the scoring title on the final day of the season. Thompson scored 32 points in the first quarter on his way to 73. Thompson made 28 of 38 shots from the field and 17 of 20 from the free-throw line. Needing 58 points to win the scoring title, Gervin scored 63 points in a 153-132 loss to New Orleans.
Very sincere thanks, Patrick. Isso fart remembers a lot of what you’ve documented….now! LOL.
It’d still be interesting what # Wilt had 98 out of a hundred of, if that was accurate at any point in time.