“I think 100 is possible. I absolutely do.” Kobe Bryant said, not about someone else’s game but his own. After torching the Raptors for 81 points in 2006, the second-highest scoring game in NBA history, Kobe wasn’t celebrating. He was critiquing. In his mind, 81 wasn’t the peak—it was a missed opportunity. He believed 100 wasn’t just Wilt’s historic outlier; it was achievable. But as bold as Kobe was, not everyone agreed. One of his fellow NBA stars had a very different take on that chase for 100.
Wilt’s 100-point game set the gold standard for over 60 years, until Kobe came within 20 points of it. But Wilt wasn’t done—he also had 78, 73, 72, and 71-point games, the only player with five 70+ outings. In 2024, Luka Doncic joined the 70+ club with 73—alongside David Thompson, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, and David Robinson, per the NBA. Playoff-wise, Michael Jordan holds the record with 63 points in 1986, beating Elgin Baylor’s 61 in the 1962 Finals. Bottom line: Wilt set the bar, Kobe raised the game, and today’s stars still chase history.
On the Dan Patrick Show, when asked if Kobe could’ve dropped 100 points in a game, Robert Horry didn’t hold back. He said, “No, I think 81 was just stretching 100 points because it get to a point where you know you got to miss some shots and guys get jealous like yo man I know you scoring them but let me get some love too.” He added, “If it went into overtime, he probably could have,” but the reality is, once a player heats up that much, the whole team shifts. The 7X NBA Champion played with Kobe on the Lakers from 1999 to 2003 and won three championships together (2001, 2002, and 2003).
Dan jumped in with, “Yeah, but you don’t want to interrupt his flow if he’s got like 70 something, you don’t go, ‘hey come on, how about I get a shot or something?’” Horry fired back, “What, no? But after a while, if I’m the coach, that’s a historical thing that’s about to happen, right? It ain’t happening on my watch. We gonna triple team him, face guard him — nobody wants to be the coach who let Kobe Bryant score 100 points. That’s trivia question stuff.” The emotion’s clear — even the legends know there’s a line between greatness and history, and everyone’s ready to guard that line hard.
It’s one of those big what-ifs in Kobe’s career. Here’s the twist: Kobe actually sat six minutes in the second quarter of that game—minutes he believes cost him crucial points. “I sat out the first six minutes in the second quarter. I could have had 14-15 points in those six minutes,” he admitted to the Basketball Network. Add those missed minutes and a couple of missed free throws, and Kobe reckoned he could’ve scored over 90 points that night. Still, Phil Jackson gave him that rest—it was a regular-season game, and logging all 48 minutes wasn’t the plan.
But for Kobe, it was never about chasing records or putting on a show. “The concept is not about going out there and putting on a show or going out there and scoring points. It’s to win games,” he said. He cared about game flow—picking his moments and keeping the team in rhythm, as Horry confirmed.
The special bond between Horry and Kobe Bryant
While not everyone could sync with Bryant, but Robert Horry? He got it. On Ringer NBA, Horry opened up about that almost telepathic connection he shared with Kobe while playing for the Lakers. “It’s just certain players you have that connection with,” Horry said, and it wasn’t fluff—it was about two guys who just knew what the other was thinking. It was all about that unspoken trust, that shared basketball IQ. “Kobe would be like, ‘Watch the press, I think they’re gonna press on this,’ and he’d start smiling because he knew I was going to get it out quick and he was going to take off.” That smile? The silent handshake. Their secret language. “They don’t show my pass, they show his move,” Horry joked, “but that was our little connection.”
(Photo by Tom Hauck/Getty Images)
What made their bond even more special was how deeply Kobe trusted Horry in those subtle, in-between moments of the game—the ones fans barely notice. Horry told a hilarious but telling story about being on the free-throw line. While others zoned out, Kobe was already three steps ahead, reading defenses, plotting counterattacks. “This just shows you how some players don’t pay attention,” Horry said, proud of their shared sharpness.
And off the court? The bond remained just as real. Horry remembered Kobe trying to learn Spades on a team flight and how that moment revealed something bigger. “You Black, you supposed to know how to play Spades, dude,” Horry had teased, poking fun at Kobe’s unfamiliarity with the game. But then he realized—it was Kobe’s hunger to learn. “The thing he had [that] nobody told me was his thirst for knowledge. He had a thirst for everything.” Whether it was Dream’s footwork or a card game, Kobe wanted to master it. That, Horry said, was misunderstood by many: “His intensity was too intense for a lot of people, especially in the basketball world.” But it wasn’t arrogance—it was the Mamba Mentality in action.
Robert Horry’s take really hits home—while Kobe’s 81 was legendary, chasing 100 points isn’t just about skill; it’s about the whole team and game dynamics. Even legends know some records are untouchable.
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