Kobe Bryant: 5 best moments of his glorious career

#2 Kobe, the destroyer of worlds

In the 2001-02 season, Kobe played a mind-boggling 80 games

A little less than a year later, the Lakers were in the midst of what would go down as quite possibly the greatest playoff run in the history of the league. In a postseason where they would finish as back to back champions, they compiled a 15-1 record, including three series wins in the West, all against teams with more than 50 wins.

In no game did Kobe’s star shine brighter than in game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Sacramento Kings, a game that very well could be his best in the playoffs.

It was a tight game throughout, that even saw the Kings take the lead going into the fourth quarter by four points, hoping to live to fight another day against the Lakers juggernaut.

However, with Shaq fighting constant foul trouble all game, leading to him eventually fouling out with three minutes left in the game, Kobe had other plans about how the game would go. He unleashed a 48 point, 16 rebound tour de force, while getting to the line a whopping 19 times, making 17 of them, and playing every minute of the game.

If the year before had announced Kobe as the next NBA superstar, this game showed that superstar was here to rip your heart out and take names, not merely win the game.

On this afternoon, Kobe put the league (and his team) on notice that there would be no nights off from his wrath, that his competitiveness burned so deep that it was not ok to accept a loss and go back home to clinch the series.

Kobe showed that if he was stepping on to the court, he was going to accept nothing less than total victory, and he was going to be the guy who delivered it. On this afternoon, he reached heights only experienced by the greatest of the NBA greats and added another chapter to what was becoming a growing legacy.