On days like today, you're going to miss Kobe Bryant
It's been a crazy week in the NBA, after Embiid and Towns went head-to-head, with Embiid scoring 70 points and Towns scoring 62 points. Two more people were on the fence today, Booker scored 62 points and Luka Doncic scored 73.
After scoring 29 points in the first quarter, Booker scored 33 points in the second three quarters, which is somewhat lacking in stamina. The Suns led the game before being overturned by the Pacers. Booker's career top two high-scoring nights ended up losing.
Four years ago today, the world lost Kobe. And as a well-known Kobe fan in the league, Booker certainly knows what day it is. After scoring 29 points in the first quarter today, Booker was still on the court at the beginning of the second quarter.
He wanted to pay tribute to his idol with a night of high scores, and he did it, 62 points are incomparably brilliant no matter what era it is placed in, but losing makes high scores seem meaningless.
If the Pacers don't include Booker, it's because Booker still has Beal and Durant standing next to him, and because the Pacers themselves have strong enough offensive confidence. Then the Hawks' defensive strategy for Doncic throughout the game is very puzzling.
Doncic showed an unparalleled touch in the opening game, scoring 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting in the first quarter and 2-of-3 from three-point range. Although it was not as explosive as Booker's 29 points in the first quarter, it has already shown unstoppable momentum.
And the Hawks still don't take a trap on Doncic, and even let a big man like Jalen Johnson defend Doncic, even choose to retreat after blocking and picking, and even let Doncic make an empty basket in the fast break.
So Doncic began to show his fangs in the second quarter, shooting 8-of-10 from the field in the quarter, 3-of-5 from three-point range, with 23 points and 3 assists. So far, Doncic scored 41 points in the half to pay tribute to Nowitzki, and by the way, broke the Mavericks' all-time halftime scoring record.
In the second half, the Hawks finally began to realize that something was wrong and began to wrap Doncic around. But at this time, the bag just gave Doncic a breather and allowed him to get a few rounds of rest.
The Hawks' defensive strategy is stupid for not carrying it out from start to finish, and if you let Doncic play the whole game, he will naturally lose his physical strength in the second half. But you made Doncic cool off for half the court, and then you started to wrap up in the second half, and he was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The key is that after a period of sandwiching, the Hawks stopped wrapping it up again, and let Doncic get into a comfortable scoring rhythm. At the end of the third quarter, Doncic scored 57 points, and he shot 4-of-5 from the field, 2-of-3 from three-point range, and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line.
At the beginning of the final quarter, Doncic scored 8 points in 1 minute and scored 65 points to set a new single-game high for Doncic's career. At this point, Doncic's physical groove bottomed out, and the Hawks began to use Murray to lead the defense of Doncic, who couldn't receive the ball for a long time, so he simply rested in the center circle.
After the physical groove recovered, Doncic seized the opportunity to hit a few, and scored 16 points in a single quarter. In the end, he scored 73 points, the highest number of active players and fourth in NBA history. There are only two people left in history who have scored more points than Doncic, Chamberlain's 78 and 100, and Kobe Bryant's 81.
On a day like today, you're going to miss Kobe Bryant. When Doncic's score was approaching 81 points, I always thought about how Kobe Bryant would play at this time.
If Murray had led the defense of Kobe, would he have let the game go by? Bryant will find a way to get the ball, and if he is pressed, he will "reasonably" push Murray away, make a shot before the bag arrives, and score.
Bryant's off-ball ability is as good as his ability to carry the ball, and there are few people who can prevent Bryant from catching the ball. You can almost see Kobe Bryant playing as freely as Doncic did today, because the opposing coach will focus on Kobe Bryant before he goes into berserk mode, and then force out an even more terrifying Kobe.
This is the source of many of Kobe's high-scoring games, the more the opposing defense pushes him harder, the more it can inspire a Kobe who is strong when he is strong. If Kobe Bryant had been in a comfortable heads-up session, he might not be so interested.
Doncic shot 25-of-33 from the field today, including 8-of-13 from three-point range, and his 75.8 percent shooting percentage is too exaggerated. Bryant scored 81 points and made 28 of 46 shots, 7 of 13 three-pointers and 18 of 20 free throws. Kobe Bryant's efficiency is certainly not as good as Doncic's, but I still prefer to watch Kobe's games.
It's not that I don't like Doncic, I've blown Dongzi a lot of times, and the next ten years of the league will definitely belong to Doncic. But on a day like today, I suddenly remembered the days when I watched Kobe Bryant play, and then fell into infinite sadness.
Kobe Bryant has been gone for four years, and I still miss him very much, and the world still misses him very much.