NBA: Kobe Bryant’s best games against every team

7. Kobe v. Grizzlies, March 22, 2007

60 points (20-37 FGs), 5 rebounds, 4 assists

Here’s a nice cherry-picked statistic: Kobe Bryant posted twice as many 60-point games in one week as LeBron James in his entire career.

(If you want to counter that with another, you could say LeBron James has 37 career triple doubles, 16 more than Kobe despite playing in approximately 400 less games over his career. But I digress.)

So many players struggle to have nights where everything clicks, where they not only get the bulk of looks and opportunities to score, but those shots are dropping. Players with 60+ points in one game are rare; outside of Kobe, there are only two active players who have cracked 60 in a game: LeBron and Carmelo Anthony. And again, it happened to Kobe twice in one week.

Not only that, but this was the third of his four straight games of at least 50 points. And I reiterate, two of those were actually 60 point games. Between March 16th and April 16th, Kobe had seven 50-point games.

It’s crazy trying to put that stretch in the perspective of the modern NBA. We are justified in getting excited when Stephen Curry catches fire from beyond the arc, or Russell Westbrook becomes He-Man and produces an insane triple-double. But never has a player in the modern era produced points this effectively. Michael Jordan’s offensive success remained consistent – it sustained longer throughout a season – but he never had a week, or even a month, like Kobe Bryant was having here.

Next: #6