Kobe Bryant Discussion: Mamba Out!

Blame Bill Plaschke for making Laker fans take sides.

 

Anyone who allows some decrepit, crater faced ball sack like Bill Plaschke to sway their thinking to anything doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

Kobe made his bed in whatever he got from most. Whether it mattered or not is irrelevant. Because he showed up every game like it mattered more than anything. And that's why Lakers fans loved him and always will. And that's why he's a legend.

 

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...amba-kobe-bryant-michael-jordan-air-jordan-19

Kobe Bryant and the secret history of the black mamba

 

Just walked past a basketball court on my way home and some kid yelled "Kobe" when he shot the ball. Didn't see who it was but it was a group of kids

Couldn't be more than 16 years old

Might be the last generation of kid to have actually seen or know about Kobe. Was bittersweet. I remember growing up, every kid would yell Kobe and shoot a paper ball at the blue bin.

 

it's still steph curry now, judging based on my nephew and his friends, but eventually it won't be him, either. ah, the passage of time...

 

Mamba mentality

https://youtube.com/shorts/UpiEG-Pne4A?si=S_WKHwtq3U7hdaJU

 

The mamba mentality

https://youtube.com/shorts/MnQyYJ2GqV8?si=kHyTUPUTm44woJNC

 

LeBron would have cried about it for three days.

 

wish we got the full view of duncan's face, as from the side his expression looked pretty funny. like: "...you just popped back in place? ok..."

 

Really irks me the way Bam got his 83. The whole 4th quarter was a joke. Heat kept fouling (an intentionally missing fts) to get him the ball when he didn't need to play any of the 4th quarter. A true all time game but def bothers me that he beat Kobe's all time record the way he did. People will look back at this game and just see he scored 83, but I (and Pepperidge Farm) will remember how it was done.

 

I don’t care what anyone says Bam was stat padding it was embarrassing the way they were trying to get him that record, they were fouling the Wizards, and leaving him in when they were up 25+. Kobe actually got his 81 point game during the flow of the game. We were down 17, 18 and he wasn’t chasing stats. He was chasing a win.

 

What an embarrassment to the league.

Stuff like this makes me not want to watch the NBA anymore.

The guy averages 4.6 FT's for his career. He just shot 40+ FT's like he's Wilt or Shaq... How do you shoot 10x more FT's in one game out of nowhere? That's ten games of FT's he shot in one game because...? NBA running out of storylines?

The guy plays against a below G-League team to pad his stats in a game the Heat won by the 1st half...

His entire team knows they're playing bums and the ref is just giving him unlimited whistles so they keep him there to 'break' a record inorganically that was done by Kobe who was actually trying to carry his team to a W.

This is just sad and pathetic. If this was Luka, Shai, or ANT, I'd understand.. they are stars, they get the calls, and they are legitimately MVP talent.

But to have a guy who no one cares about, isn't a superstar, barely averages 4.6 FT's for his career, his previous career high in points was like 34 points, and all of a sudden, he's breaking the record?

NBA should be ashamed of themselves... because this just proved that scoring records will mean nothing. No way this dude deserved 40+ FT's!

 

I hope Luka, SGA, or Wemby drops 85 just so we don’t have to hear “Bam Adebayo has the second most points in NBA history.” It should’ve at least been someone more worthy like one of those guys I just mentioned.

 

all this exactly. not a drop of "feel good" in any of this. gross stuff.

 

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Bam Adebayo

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Bam Scores 83
NBA World Reacts
Free Throw King
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Carved in NBA Lore
The Right Call?
Why Bam Adebayo and the Heat should have stopped at matching Kobe Bryant’s 81 points



Sam Amick

March 11, 2026Updated 6:36 am PDT




Eighty-three points is 83 points.

Full stop.

What you’re about to read, to be clear, might very well qualify as haterade of the highest order. What’s more, consider this disclaimer as it relates to Bam Adebayo’s historic achievement in Miami on Tuesday: I didn’t watch more than a few minutes of the game against the Washington Generals, err, Wizards — nor do I plan to.

That unfortunate ending was more than enough.

In a bizarre and completely avoidable plot twist, the Heat decided to leave Adebayo in the game with 1:35 left, presumably so that he could pass Kobe Bryant’s 81-point mark from 20 years ago and secure the second-highest scoring performance in NBA history (behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100). Never mind that the Heat were up by 27 points at the time, or that all signs had pointed to the Heat pulling him with 81 points as a classy tribute to the late, great Lakers star.

The Heat coaching staff could be seen instructing its players to foul, with all indications that it was for the purpose of getting Adebayo to his standing ovation and, then, out of the game. Even Eric Reid, the Heat’s longtime play-by-play man, told the viewing audience that this was happening.

“Bam is going to make his exit here,” Reid said. “He’ll be so happy to share this honor with the late, great legend, Kobe Bryant — one of Bam’s favorite all-time players.”

The storyline was set, or so it seemed. Adebayo and the Heat would read the proverbial room, realizing that there was more meaning in matching Bryant’s mark and sharing that unique spotlight as a tacit tribute than there was in pushing for more.

Alas, as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra would insist afterward, “I didn’t even dare think about taking him out.”

So … Bam remained.

“Is there more in store for Bam?” Reid continued on the broadcast as Adebayo fought through a full-court double-team to catch an inbounds pass seconds later. “The Heat (are) just determined to help Bam make even more of an indelible imprint into the history of the game.”

In truth, it had the opposite effect. At least from this vantage point.

Maybe this reaction is rooted in nostalgia for Bryant’s storied night against the Toronto Raptors in Los Angeles on Jan. 22, 2006, or the even deeper reflection that comes because of his tragic passing 14 years after that game. By virtue of human nature, his death puts greater weight on every one of his most cherished feats and creates a sense that they should be handled with a certain kind of care. And judging by the reaction of some of the people from Bryant’s past, whom I was in touch with after Adebayo’s outing, this sentiment wasn’t unique.

That gesture alone — Adebayo calling it quits right as he hit 81 — would have masked all the messiness of this stat-chasing moment. There would be less focus on how the Heat helped Adebayo add to his total down the stretch, intentionally fouling in those final minutes to extend the game and getting him those two final free throws with 1:16 left before he finally departed. Ditto for the awkward confusion about his intentions at the end. The choice to stay in the game was hardly his only miss on the night — he made 20 of 43 overall and 7 of 22 from 3-point range — but it was the one that Kobe supporters will remember most.

To be fair to him and the history books, it’s not as if Bryant’s best scoring night of his storied career wasn’t without its imperfections. The Toronto team he torched was a bona fide bottom-feeder, as those Chris Bosh-led Raptors fell to 14-27 that night and finished the season 27-55. The Los Angeles Lakers were the better squad — 45-37 and headed for a first-round exit against the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs — but still bad by their lofty standards. Case in point: The point guard whom Bryant consistently cited as his least favorite, Smush Parker, took the second-most shots (11) in that game.

That 27-year-old Bryant was in his vintage, let-it-fly mode that night, with Jalen Rose famously fielding the unenviable defensive assignment. By night’s end, Bryant had hit 28 of 46 shots overall, 7 of 13 from 3-point range and 18 of 20 from the free-throw line — efficiency that was well above his career norms, even with the insanely high volume.


Much of Bam Adebayo’s scoring Tuesday night came from the free-throw line. He made 36 of 43 attempts, including his 83rd point against the Washington Wizards.Rhona Wise / Imagn Images
What Adebayo did was remarkable in its own right, a (mostly) necessary feat that helped the Heat (37-29) win their sixth consecutive game (and 10th in 13 tries) while missing three of their top four scorers (Norman Powell, Tyler Herro and Andrew Wiggins). The fact that it came against a Wizards team in full tank mode wasn’t his fault, either. You play who’s in front of you.

Still, Adebayo’s performance was a far cry from what Bryant did back then, and you didn’t have to watch his outing in its entirety to see that much. Not only did nearly half of his points come from the free-throw line (a league-record 36), but there was an extreme effort to force-feed him through double- and triple-teams late when the game was well in hand.

In this NBA age of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander slander, when even the league’s reigning MVP faces a flurry of criticism when he spends an inordinate amount of time at the charity stripe, the free-throw element alone was enough to take some of the fun out of the feat. By comparison, Chamberlain had 28 free throws in his 100-point, Hershey, Pa., special against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962; Bryant had 18 on his 81-point night.

In truth, what Adebayo did was as impressive an aberration as you’ll ever find in the Association. The three-time All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medalist is a renowned two-way force, the kind of player who anchors elite defenses and elevates offenses with his scoring and playmaking ability. But this was a whole new level when it came to scoring, as he has only averaged 20-plus points once in his nine seasons and had a previous career high of 41.

Consider this, too: Adebayo shot a combined 40 free throws in his previous nine games (289 minutes in all). Against the Wizards, he shot 43 free throws (another league record) in 42 minutes.

None of which he needs to apologize for, by the way. Quite the contrary, in fact. The praise should come from far and wide for doing this incredible deed; 83 points is 83 points, after all.

If only he had called it a night just a little bit sooner.

 

couldn’t have said it better

 

It was embarrassing. Fouling to stop the clock up 20+ is lunacy.