The day Kobe Bryant crushed the Knicks out of jealousy towards LeBron James

On February 2, 2009, Kobe Bryant scored 61 points at Madison Square Garden. Two days later, LeBron James would go up to 52 at the same place against the New York Knicks. The reason behind Mamba's extraordinary game? Jealousy towards The King because of the press. This story is recounted by David Lee, who was a player for the Knicks at that time, apparently because it was later told to him by Pau Gasol. Check it out: "The 60-point performance by Kobe could have been one of the craziest... It was one of the craziest memories I know of. I know we were on the wrong side, but the background story of that situation. They called it the Dreams Week at the Garden. Boston was the first, with Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, the year they won. They had the Lakers on Wednesday, wherever it was during the week. And the last game was LeBron with the Cavs. And that's all that was talked about in the media that week: LeBron coming to New York, fans have to show their support for LeBron. So Kobe hears this, and I became close to Pau Gasol, then I played with him at San Antonio. Kobe hears this and says, 'Wait a second. You mean to tell me that we are going to New York to play, and they are talking about LeBron? Is that what everyone is talking about right now? Right now we're the best team in the West.' So, usually, he would make the captains' meeting a thing, and I was captain at that moment. You go up, it's always Pau Gasol and Kobe, and you say, 'Hello Kobe. Hello David. How is your family? Everything okay? Glad to see you'." "We get to the captain's thing, and he had tears in his eyes and was like that (with a stern face). And I say to him: 'Hi, how are you? Trying to talk, 'How have you been?' He shakes his head, doesn't say a word. I tell him, 'Fine.' Pau Gasol looks at me as if to say, 'I don't know what's going on here.' So I go back, Mike D'Antoni is our coach. I tell him, 'Mike, man. I don't know what's about to happen, but it's not going to be good.' Mike is a very funny guy and says to me, 'Well, David, he can't beat us alone.' And I tell him, 'Okay.' So he takes the ball, goes in, and makes a three. Then he scores another layup. He got 7 points in the first few minutes. The coach calls a timeout and says, 'I may have made a mistake. He may be able to do this by himself.' But that speaks of Kobe's character and the electric back-and-forth game at the Garden, because we stayed in the game for a long time. You remember it, the fans were going crazy, and Kobe would shoot from two steps inside the half-court line and look at the people, and he was so angry because all the media attention was on LeBron. So it's a pretty crazy story."

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El día que Kobe Byrant destrozó a los Knicks por celos hacia LeBron James