March 3, 2013
34 years, 192 days
Vino came out of the bottle once again to deliver his team a game-winning bucket.
In his first game since adopting his “like fine wine” nickname, Kobe Bryant dropped 34 points and hit a go-ahead layup with 9.0 second left to push his team past Atlanta, 99-98.
“I just had to attack,” Bryant told reporters. “I wanted to attack and just go right at them. Take the game to them. Be aggressive. Be physical. And it worked out.”
Bryant scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, including all of Los Angeles’ last six. On the decisive hoop, he kissed it off the glass to turn a one-point deficit into victory.
Though Atlanta forced 21 L.A. turnovers and shot 50.0 percent behind 24 points from Al Horford, Bryant was too much to handle.
“There’s a reason why he’s the best player in the game,” Horford said. “He did what he usually does, and we didn’t do a good enough job on him.”
With Pau Gasol injured, Bryant received some help in the form of double-doubles from Steve Nash (15 points, 10 assists) and Dwight Howard (11 points, 13 rebounds).
Kobe performances on this day in history: