Los Angeles Lakers: Kobe Bryant’s best game against every team in NBA

Kobe Bryant’s best game against the San Antonio Spurs – Game 1 of the 2001 playoffs

Kobe’s biggest rival throughout his entire career was arguably the San Antonio Spurs. Kobe said after he retired that if the Spurs did not exist, then he and Shaq could have probably won 10 championships together.

They were a consistent threat to win the NBA title throughout most of his career and they had a ton of battles in the playoffs year after year. Kobe ended up playing a total of 30 playoff games against the franchise, the most Bryant played against any team.

One of Kobe’s first breakout playoff performances came in the first game of the 2001 Western Conference Finals when it looked like he could not be stopped on his way to racking up 45 points and leading the Lakers to a victory. He also made it a double-double by pulling down 10 rebounds and had three assists, one block, and one steal as well.

The Lakers rode this Game 1 victory to their third sweep in a row and did not lose a single game to Western Conference foe on the way to the Finals.

This was the most that Kobe ever scored against the Spurs in the playoffs or regular season, so that made it easy to choose this one as his best game against them.