Kobe Bryant’s best game against the New York Knicks – Kobe sets the MSG scoring record with 61 points in 2009
There are certain venues where Kobe wanted to put on a show every time he played there, and the Mecca of basketball, Madison Square Garden, was certainly one of those places. It was only a matter of time before Kobe would have one of those nights in MSG, and break the scoring record for the building, and in 2009 he did just that.
In the 2008-09 season, the Lakers were easily the best team in the NBA and were way too much for the lowly New York Knicks to handle and they won this match up 126 to 117. This was before the Carmelo Anthony trade, so the Lakers were facing a young team that was just in awe of what Kobe was doing against them.
It is surprising that in his 34 games against Knicks that this was his only performance of 50 or more points. In 2014 Kobe’s Madison Square Garden scoring record was broken by Carmelo Anthony and it was tied by James Harden who scored 61 points in 2019.
However, for that night in 2009 when Kobe broke Bernard King’s record that stood for 25 years, he was king of the Big Apple with 61 points. After the game, Kobe said part of the reason for him scoring 61 was because he was working on a documentary with famous Knicks fan and director Spike Lee after the game, and he could not have him talking trash while they worked together.