He had several clutch performances that season but that game might have been my favorite. Three 3's some of which were not easy and a dunk to seal the game. Also that Nash bounce pass from out of bounds.
Sigh... The potential trio of 24, Nash and Howard. Had Nash not gotten injured at Portland or Howard was fully healthy with his back... Tough to look back. Gasol was still with us at the time too. Citing that Nash pass...24 would not have to work so hard to get the ball for to shoot.
Would have loved to see how Kobe's game aged without that injury. I still feel robbed. Tough to watch the all time legends fade away and move on, but in spite of everything, he did it his way, and went out with a bang most likely never to be repeated. Legend.
It was crazy how Kobe somehow didn't slow down while he was being run into the ground by Pringles. He would've definitely finished 1st or 2nd all time in scoring if his Achilles didn't explode.
Sounding from more recent reports that Kobe did it himself, would not listen to Mike. He made the promise to get them to the playoffs and blew the Achilles in the process of achieving that. I even somewhat believe Dwight's saying they all were concerned over Kobe's minutes. Even him. Mike simply didn't have enough juice to protect Kobe from himself.
NBATV recently showed the game Lakers at Portland. Kobe's truly last great game before the injury. He put up 47 pts, 8 reb, 5 ast, 3 stl, 4 blks on 14-27 fgm (April 10, 2013) Kobe played all 48 minutes of the game The next game Kobe tore his Achilles
AWWW JEEEZE. REALLY?? THE VERY NEXT GAME IS WHEN KOBE BRYANT LITERALLY STOPPED BEING "KOBE BRYANT"?? Yeah, great get and post Doc!! ^^^ .... just in case .... am in no way being sarcastic. That is the last game of the real Kobe Bryant. What a f****** game and Kobe shots taken. And in this case made, very late in his career!