Kobe goes out with a bang, scores 60 in final game to beat Jazz
Kobe Bryant’s 20th and final NBA season came to a close on Wednesday night. He finished it exactly as he spent most of it: remorselessly and gleefully gunning.
And everybody loved it, because it was perfect. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
In his last game as a professional basketball player, Bryant fully embraced the Viking funeral that began when he announced on Nov. 29, 2015, that this would be his last ride. With Los Angeles Lakers fans, NBA legends, former teammates, Hollywood royalty, his wife and his children watching his every move, Kobe entertained us all one more time with a performance that seemed, even as it was unfolding, like the stuff of fiction.
Just spoke to Shaq – he said “I challenged him to get 50 and the mother****er got 60”
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) April 14, 2016
He scored 60 points — the highest-scoring game in the NBA this season, topping Anthony Davis’ 59; the sixth 60-point game of his career, second-most all-time behind fellow Laker great Wilt Chamberlain; and the most points ever by a player in his final NBA game (joining, of all people, Jordan Crawford and Eddie House!). He did so on 50 field-goal attempts, the most by any player in any one game dating back to the 1983-84 season, to lead the Lakers to a thrilling and unbelievable 101-96 win over the visiting Utah Jazz. In yet another season full of losing, Kobe went out a winner … and he went out a winner in the most precisely, 10-out-of-10 Kobe way humanly possible.
Bryant became the fifth player in NBA history to score 40 or more after age 37, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Dirk Nowitzki, who did it just last month. He is the second player to score 50 or more after age 37, joining MJ. He is the only player to score 60 after age 37. On that score, he stands alone.
He scored 38 points after halftime, mixing in trips to the rim, deep 3s and pull-up jumpers en route to going 15-for-30 from the field after intermission. He played all but the final four seconds of the third and fourth quarters to carry the Lakers back from a 15-point halftime deficit. He outscored the Jazz by himself in the fourth quarter, 23-21. And, perfectly enough, his final play as an NBA player … was a pass, a hit-ahead feed for a Jordan Clarkson dunk that gave the game its final margin:
Bryant finished with four assists. To go with his FIFTY SHOTS.
How joyously absurd was Kobe on the final night of his NBA career? This joyously absurd:
KOBE MADE KANYE SMILE pic.twitter.com/tPVbc6faWR
— derick (@DerickSmith_) April 14, 2016
This post will be updated.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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