On this day in history, January 14th of 2002, Pau Gasol probably thought to himself, "one day I would like to play with Kobe Bryant."

Gasol had a decent night with a team-high of 25 points and 12 rebounds in 44 minutes, but his future teammate, Kobe Bryant, poured in a ridiculous 56 points in just 34 minutes. The only reason Kobe didn't play any additional minutes is that the Lakers had a 98-59 lead at the end of the third quarter. It's pretty insane to think Kobe Bryant almost outscored an opposing team by himself after three quarters; It's more insane that he actually ended up doing it against the Mavs in 2005, by outscoring them 62-61 after three quarters.

The 56 was a new career-high for Kobe, who made 21-of-34 shots and 11-of-12 free throws.

"For some reason, I felt really good," Bryant said. "I felt like I was in a groove. I didn't get the feeling of the basket being big, I had a lot of bounce. The legs felt extremely good."

One of the most amusing things about the game was how good Kobe was feeling about suspended teammate Shaq: Kobe wrote the #34 on his hideous-looking Adidas shoes when he heard about Shaq being suspended. After the game, he was asked if he had a message for Shaq. His response: “I love you, man!”

That love didn't last much longer but thankfully for Kobe, Pau Gasol was there to try to fill the void.

SHAQ VS BRAD MILLER

If you want to know why Shaq was suspended for three games, check out this missed punch on Bulls' center Brad Miller after a flagrant foul by him and Charles Oakley. Thankfully, Shaq didn't land the punch because we might have had another Kermit Washington/Rudy T story if he did.

The punch also came with $15,000 fine. Miller was suspended for one game and Oakley got two.

Since we are talking about big games and Lakers' bigs of the past, if you flashback 64 years ago today, George Mikan scored 51 of the Lakers 77 points in a loss to the Royals.

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On this day in history, January 27th of 1990, the Mailman delivered a career-high of 61 points against the Bucks and the Bucks can blame basketball fans for it.

Why?

All-Star voters loved the Showtime Lakers so much, they voted AC Green into the starting lineup of the 1990 NBA All-Star game. The league's 2nd best scorer was so bitter about the snub, he said he was going to boycott the game.

"I can go to Miami, or I can go fishing in Louisiana. Right now, fishing in Louisiana sounds pretty good to me," Malone said when asked about the All-Star game.

Malone, the MVP of the previous year's All-Star game, was eventually asked to play and he did show up in Miami, but didn't play "due to an injury." ?An injury he didn't have when he took out his anger on the Bucks after news of the snub.

I'm not sure what's more impressive about his career-high 61, the fact he made 82% of his shots (21 of 26 field goals and 19 of 23 free throws), the fact he only played 33 minutes or that the Jazz scored 144 points in regulation and won by 48.

The numbers are just mind-boggling in this game and maybe the most mind-boggling stat to me is there were not any other "standout" performances. Usually, when a team scores over 130, you will have multiple players with 30+ points. The 2nd highest scorer in this game was Ricky Pierce with just 21 off the bench. You would also think if Malone scored 61 points then league-leader in assists John Stockton probably had at least 20 dimes. Nope, he only had 16...he also only played 26 minutes.

Crazy is the only way I can sum up this game. Almost as crazy as AC Green starting over him in the NBA All-Star game.

And if you were wondering how Green did in the All-Star game, he missed all three of his shots in 12 minutes of action and was the only player in the game to put up a donut.

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There are two basketball related things I like to bring up every January 26th. One is Jamal Crawford has never been an NBA All-Star. That thought comes up because the NBA All-Star reserves start coming out around this time and I can't tell you how many times I've heard a name and said, "I bet this guy will be a trivia question one day that the casual basketball fan will get wrong." The second thing is Jamal Crawford, along with Hall of Famers Bernard King, Wilt Chamberlain and Moses Malone are the only players to ever score 50+ points with three different teams. That thought comes up because, on January 26th of 2007, Jamal had his second 50-point game. What makes this 50-point game so special is I actually consider it one of the most impressive and unappreciated 50-point games in NBA history.

Let's back up a little.

Four night before this historic night, the Knicks played a Wade and Shaq-less Miami Heat and somehow lost by 18, despite 23 points and 9 assists off the bench from Crawford. The Knicks played the Suns next and again went home losers, despite 29 and 11 from Crawford. The struggling Knicks then had to face the defending Champion Heat again, with Shaq and Wade back in the lineup. Everybody was thinking only an act of God could help the Knicks win this one and that's kind of what happened.

“That was heavenly intervention," said the Knicks Jerome James.

Crawford was a basketball God that night. After missing his first four shots, Crawford went from mortal man to basketball God and made 16 straight shots, including eight 3-pointers! His next miss didn't come until late in the 3rd quarter with the Knicks up by 20.

"The way how Jamal played tonight was incredible," Knicks guard Stephon Marbury said. "That was the best performance I've ever seen inside the Garden other than Michael Jordan."

With such a big lead and Wade going to the bench while waiving the white flag, Coach Isaiah Thomas had Crawford commit a foul with almost seven minutes left in the game so the fans could give Jamal a much deserved standing ovation. He did the get applause for leaving the game with 52 points on 20-for-30 shooting and becoming the third Knick to ever to score 50+ points in less than 40 minutes. But Thomas also got some complaints from fans who wanted to see Crawford go for 60 and/or break Bernard King's MSG record. Considering it was what Crawford called, "the hottest night of his career," scoring just eight points in the next seven minutes wouldn't have been much of a challenge. That is unless the other team took the record-chasing personally and decided to stop Crawford by any means necessary.

On a recent podcast interview with Woj, Crawford talked about that night and said the "old school" Thomas had too much respect for the game to leave him in with the Heat stars on the bench; he also wanted to make sure the Knicks didn't have a repeat of what happened when the Knicks left their starters in the previous year while they were up by 20 against the Nuggets.

I also had the pleasure of discussing this night with Crawford during a 2015 interview with him. You can go to the 31.45 second mark of the following video to hear him talk about the night or you can just watch the entire thing and hear him discuss the other two 50-point games, his NBA records, his passion for basketball, his commitment to his community and realize the difference between a true basketball star and an NBA All-Star.

Source: NY Times

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On this day in history, January 16th of 1993, Michael "Air" Jordan attempted 49 field goals (60 shots total if you count free throws) in a single game. To put that number in perspective, when Kobe Bryant scored 81 points, he attempted 46 field goals and 66 total shots if you include his 20 free throw attempts.

I'm not putting down MJ in any way for taking so many shots in this OT game,?I'm just saying 49 field goals is a lot. Since 1985, there have only been five instances when a player attempted over 45. Of those five, three came from the hands of Kobe Bryant (including a game where he only made 17-of-47 shots) and the other guy beside Jordan on this shortlist is Chris Webber, who scored 51 with his 47 attempts.

So what did MJ accomplish with his 49 attempts? How about 64 points (did I mention he had a hurt wrist) -- good enough for his second-highest point total ever and 10th all-time in the NBA since 1963. During that time, only David Thompson, Pete Maravich, and Wilt have scored more. But what makes Jordan's effort in this game against a rookie Orlando Shaq so notable is that it came in a loss. Yep, Michael Jordan scored 64 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, made 1 assist (1 assist!) and stole the ball 5 times, only to have the Orlando Magic steal the game: 128-124.

One person who would disagree with the "stealing" comment was Bull's assistant coach Tex Winter. With 44 seconds left in regulation and the Bulls up by 6, Tex told the Zen Master they didn't deserve this win. Then came a turnover by MJ, a rebound and dunk by Shaq -- who had 29 points and 24 rebounds -- missed free throws by Bill Cartwright and a wide-open three by Chicago native Nick Anderson, who was also the man Jordan was supposed to be covering.

OT would see much of the same from the final minute of regulation. Turnovers and missed free throws by the Bulls and Nick Anderson coming through in the clutch for a Magic team that found redemption after losing to the Bulls in Orlando four days earlier.

"We should be disappointed, we should be mad at ourselves for giving away this game, but not to the point where you start pointing fingers at teammates," said Jordan as the majority of his teammates refused to comment. "We should evaluate what we did and make sure it doesn't happen again.

The funny thing about the "doesn't happen again" statement is the Magic have a history of beating MJ and the Bulls when Mike has a great game. This was the third time Jordan scored 45+ against Orlando and the Bulls lost all three of those, including the infamous stolen jersey game.

As mentioned, Jordan did finish with his second-highest point total and most field goals ever but when asked about his personal accomplishments in the game, MJ didn't even want to acknowledge it.

"The points don't make a difference to me," Jordan said. "It's just wasted energy in a sense because we didn't finish the game the way we should have.?'We just gave away the game. 'We played good enough, but we just made some dumb plays. When you blow a six-point lead in less than a minute, there is something wrong with that. Getting 64 points doesn't mean anything when you lose.''

Magic coach Matt Goukas summed up the win nicely by just saying, ''Sometimes fate smiles on you.''

MICHAEL JORDAN 64 POINT BREAKDOWN:?22 in the 1st quarter. 8 in the 2nd. 11 in the 3rd. 16 in the 4th and 7 in OT

Boxscore

BONUS VIDEOS

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December 29th of 2001, a 38-year-old Michael Jordan set a franchise record by scoring 24 first-quarter points and finishing the game with a total of 51 against the Charlotte Hornets.

The 50-point game came just two days after the lowest scoring game of his career (6 points) and marked the first 50+ game for him since 1997 when he scored 55 against...Washington!

''I'm pretty sure you guys were saying how old I was,'' Jordan said. ''And I wanted certainly to make a statement offensively.''

The GOAT stat line: 51 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 38 minutes (21-38 FG, 9-10 FT)

POSTGAME INTERVIEW

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