Kobe's Top 5 Performances

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Bryant says he doesn't rank his best games, but he didn't dispute my list when I ran it down for him after Laker practice Wednesday.

Here they are, with comments by Bryant:

1 Portland Trail Blazers, Western Conference finals Game 7, June 4, 2000

His final line of 25 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and four blocked shots doesn't sound too extraordinary until you realize he led the Lakers in all of those categories that afternoon. Had the Lakers lost, it's doubtful that group would ever have won a championship. Instead they overcame a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter and began their run of three consecutive championships. On a legacy-defining day, Bryant was the MVP.

Bryant: "Portland is the one. We don't step up that game, you don't know what could have happened. It's the most important."

Signature moment: A lob to Shaquille O'Neal for a dunk in the final minute.

2 Indiana Pacers, NBA Finals Game 4, June 14, 2000

With the series hanging in the balance and O'Neal disqualified with six fouls, Bryant took command in overtime. Not fully recovered from a sprained ankle that had kept him out of Game 3, Bryant scored eight points in OT to win the game and put the Lakers within one victory of the championship. For the first time, the Michael Jordan comparisons looked valid.

Bryant: "That was the coming-out party. That was the beginning. People had to step back and say, 'This kid is for real.' "

Signature moment: A jumper from the top, followed by a Nick Van Exel-ish gesture of pushing his hands toward the floor as if to say, "Stay calm, I've got this."

3 Orlando Magic, arch 5, 2004

The best example I've seen of a player taking over a game at both ends. Tracy McGrady scalded the Lakers for 32 points in the first three quarters and the Magic led by 15. But Bryant guarded McGrady in the fourth quarter and held him to five points, while Bryant took on the entire Orlando defense to score 24 fourth-quarter points to push the game to overtime. Bryant finished with 38 points and the Lakers won.

Bryant: "Tracy was hot. I take that kind of stuff personally. I wanted to go in and cool him off … wanted to go out there and stop him, then had the energy to help my team get back in the game as well."

Signature moment: Gary Payton, shaking his head and laughing in disbelief after yet another Bryant basket.

4 Houston Rockets, Feb. 18, 2003

With O'Neal injured and the Lakers struggling at 26-25, the Rockets came to town for a game with major playoff implications. Yes, in February. In the high point of Bryant's streak of nine 40-point games he dropped 52 on the Rockets and the Lakers won in double overtime.

Bryant: "The fun part is when the team needs it. We needed it."

Signature moment: A soaring dunk over Yao Ming.

5 Dallas, Dec. 20, 2005

Makes it because he scored 62 points in three quarters. Not ranked higher because he wasn't needed at all in the fourth. That's also why he didn't re-enter the game and pad his totals.

Bryant: "I want to do it when it counts. The reason why I [scored 62] is because I wanted to win the game so bad. We were up by 30 points. What do I want to go back in there for? My job is done."

We're not done here until we talk about Wilt Chamberlain. Bryant climbed high Tuesday night, and all it did was give him a better view of the peak.

Bryant's 30-point third quarter was the best in Laker history. And yet he still would have needed to score 38 in the fourth to match Chamberlain's NBA record of 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors.

Unfortunately there aren't enough archived records to know if Chamberlain or anyone else ever personally outscored a team through three quarters. After three in the 100-point night, Wilt had 69 and the New York Knicks had 106.

Check out Gary Pomerantz's book, "Wilt, 1962" for a detailed account of the game and the season in which it occurred. One of the interesting anecdotes is that none of the New York newspapers and only two of the Philadelphia papers sent reporters to Hershey, Pa., to cover the game. Harvey Pollack, the Warriors' statistician supreme, wrote stories for the AP, UPI and the Philadelphia Inquirer. No film exists of the game and it's only because a college student recorded the radio broadcast that we have audio of the fourth quarter play-by-play.

For Bryant's performance we could catch the game around the country on NBA League Pass, TiVo it to watch it again, see the highlights on ESPN.

There are 18,897 fans who can claim to have been there, plus one man who can say he also saw Elgin Baylor score 71 points in 1960: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has scored a point or 38,000 in his life as well.

"I think I'm the only guy who's seen both of the games," said the Laker assistant coach, who was 13 when he went to New York's Madison Square Garden and watched Baylor. "It's kind of a unique thing."

Abdul-Jabbar didn't need an e-mail account or a Treo to share his thoughts on Bryant's game. He simply walked up to Bryant on Wednesday morning and said the two words we all should say for turning an ordinary night into a wildly entertaining one: "Thank you."</div>

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