After winning 15 of their first 21 games, the 2006-07 Los Angeles Lakers fell on hard times, mainly due to key injuries, and team morale suffered greatly as a result.
In mid-March, with the team having lost its last seven games in a row and 19 of its last 26, Kobe Bryant was fed up.
He had spent much of the season looking to trust his teammates and distribute the ball, but with his squad in shambles, he went into supernova mode for the good of the team.
On March 16, Los Angeles hosted the Portland. Although the Trail Blazers were a pretty bad team, the Lakers struggled to put themselves in position to win.
With less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Lakers trailed, 96-89, but Bryant hit three straight 3-pointers to almost single-handedly force overtime.
He had 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting in the period, and he put in nine points in overtime, giving him 65 on 23-of-39 shooting from the field and 8-of-12 from 3-point range, as L.A. won, 116-111.
This was Bryant in borderline desperation mode, and it continued. He scored at least 50 points in each of his next three games and six more times in total that year to drag his sputtering team to the playoffs.
