Kobe's 81 revisited

Henry Abbott makes the following observations after watching the tape of Kobe's historic shooting night

early in the game, say when he's scoring his first thirty points, he's getting his body between his defender and the basket. That's good basketball. He's beating his man, and his shots on the move are shots any basketball coach in America would want his player to shoot.

Later in the game, however, he clearly tires. The quality of the shot opportunities he can create for himself against a set defense is low. But he takes them anyway.

To me this performance is more about the time he has spent alone in gyms throughout his life. It's not the culmination of everything everyone has ever taught him about basketball. It's a tribute to the fact that with a lifetime of hard work and repetition, on some nights, you'll get such a hot hand that even the shots you should never take will fall.