Disclaimer – I know this post will get a lot of hate already from Kobe fans, but there’s a reason why I want to share this, is because I always hear constantly from Kobe fans that he was such an unstoppable scorer and about how many ‘scoring explosions’ he’s had, which invariably result in a long list of impressive regular season games where he put up these nice big scoring numbers.
I was curious about his playoff performances however, and decided to go through every playoff game he’s played in, to see just how many high scoring games he’s had in the playoffs.
Now keep in mind, I’m not saying Kobe isn’t a great scorer in the playoffs – he has 13 40+ point games in the playoffs, good for #6 all time – https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-career-playoff-games-by-a-player-with-40-or-more-pts and his playoffs PPG mirrors his regular season PPG at 25 PPG – however you’ll notice he doesn’t quite have the peaks (i.e 81 pts or 62 in 3 quarters etc) that he reached in the regular season.
But what I did notice is a lot of weird games where Kobe got outscored by players people might not expect. This is probably why when people look over Kobe’s playoff games, there’s some weird stuff that shows up that usually gets ignored – a point that was made by guys like Nick Wright and Ryan Russillo when they looked over Kobe’s playoff games. And yes I realize everyone gets outscored now and then – it’s just surprising how often it happened to Kobe.
Keep in mind, I’m not going to include Kobe’s teammates who outscored him like Shaq or Gasol, or Hall of Famers / Hall of Fame locks like Iverson, Melo, Pierce, Duncan, KG, KD etc else this list would be even longer. I’m only going to list the number of times Kobe got outscored by non Hall of Famer locks and/or role players. I’m also not going to list any games he played when he was a bench player, cause that wouldn’t be fair to him.
1999 vs Spurs, Game 4 – Avery Johnson 19 PTS, Kobe 16 PTS
2000 vs Suns, Game 2 – Clifford Robinson 30 PTS, Kobe 15 PTS
2000 vs Suns, Game 4 – Clifford Robinson 32 PTS , Kobe 23 PTS
2000 vs Blazers, Game 2 – Rasheed Wallace 29 PTS, Kobe 12 PTS
2000 vs Blazers, Game 4 – Rasheed Wallace 34 PTS, Kobe 18 PTS
2000 vs Blazers, Game 7 – Rasheed Wallace 30 PTS, Kobe 25 PTS
2000 Finals vs Pacers, Game 5 – Jalen Rose 32 PTS, Kobe 8 PTS (before anyone says that Kobe was injured this series.. this was Game 5, after Kobe came back in Game 4 with a memorable 28pt clutch performance)
2000 Finals vs Pacers, Game 6 – Jalen Rose 29 PTS, Kobe 26 PTS
2002 vs Kings, Game 3 – Mike Bibby 24 PTS, Kobe 22 PTS
2002 Finals vs Nets, Game 4 – Kenyon Martin 35 PTS, Kobe 25 PTS
2003 vs Timberwolves, Game 2 – Troy Hudson 37 PTS, Kobe 27 PTS
2004 vs Rockets, Game 1 – Steve Francis 18 PTS, Kobe 16 PTS
2004 vs Rockets, Game 3 – Steve Francis 27 PTS, Kobe 21 PTS
2004 vs Timberwolves, Game 6 – Latrell Sprewell 27 PTS, Kobe 20 PTS
2004 Finals vs Pistons, Game 3 – Rip Hamilton 31 PTS, Kobe 11 PTS
2006 vs Suns, Game 3 – Shawn Marion 20 PTS, Kobe 17 PTS
2006 vs Suns, Game 7 – Leandro Barbossa 26 PTS, Kobe 24 PTS
2007 vs Suns, Game 2 – Leandro Barbossa 26 PTS, Kobe 15 PTS
2008 vs Jazz, Game 5 – Deron Williams 27 PTS, Kobe 26 PTS
2009 vs Jazz, Game 2 – Deron Williams 35 PTS, Kobe 26 PTS
2009 vs Jazz, Game 1 – Carlos Boozer 27 PTS, Kobe 24 PTS
2009 vs Jazz, Game 3 – Carlos Boozer 23 PTS, Kobe 18 PTS
2009 vs Rockets, Game 4 – Aaron Brooks 34 PTS, Kobe 15 PTS
2009 Finals vs Magic, Game 2 – Rashard Lewis 34 PTS, Kobe 29 PTS
2010 vs Suns, Game 2 – Jason Richardson 27 PTS, Kobe 21 PTS
2010 vs Suns, Game 3 – Amare Stoudemire 42 PTS, Kobe 36 PTS
2011 vs Hornets, Game 2 – Trevor Ariza 22 PTS, Kobe 11 PTS
2011 vs Hornets, Game 5 – Trevor Ariza 22 PTS, Kobe 19 PTS
2011 vs Mavs, Game 3 – Jason Terry 23 PTS, Kobe 17 PTS
2011 vs Mavs, Game 4 – Jason Terry 32 PTS, Kobe 17 PTS
2012 vs Nuggets, Game 3 – Ty Lawson 25 PTS, Kobe 22 PTS
2012 vs Nuggets, Game 6 – Ty Lawson 32 PTS, Kobe 31 PTS
2012 vs Nuggets, Game 7 – Ty Lawson 24 PTS, Kobe 17 PTS
Was this surprising or interesting to any of you guys? because to me it’s definitely interesting, like Aaron Brooks outscored Kobe 34 to 15 in the playoffs? Really? What happened there? This is not meant to be ‘Kobe hate’ but it is interesting to note how many weird playoff games Kobe had where he was outscored by some really random names.
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