Former New York Knicks big man David Lee recently revealed that Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant’s 61-point performance vs. the New York Knicks in 2009 actually was motivated by the media hype of then Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James coming to Madison Square Garden a few days later (James ended up scoring 52 points, dishing out 11 assists, and grabbing 9 rebounds).

“Kobe’s 60 point performance might have been one of the craziest… It was one of the craziest memories I know I had. I know we were on the wrong end of it, but the backstory of that situation. So, they called it Dream Week at the Garden. Boston came in first, and that’s when they had Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, the year that they won it. You had the Lakers on Wednesday, wherever it was during the week. And then the last game was LeBron with the Cavs. And so, all anybody would talk about the whole week in the media: LeBron’s coming to New York, fans need to show that they’re supportive of LeBron. So Kobe hears this, and I’ve become close with Pau Gasol, later played with him in San Antonio. Kobe hears this and he’s like, ‘Wait a second. You mean to tell me we’re coming to New York to play; and they’re talking about LeBron? That’s what everyone’s talking about right now? We’re the best team in the West right now.’ So usually, I would do the captain’s meeting at the thing and I was captain at the time. Go up, it’s Pau Gasol & Kobe everytime, and you’re like, ‘Hey Kobe. Hey David. How’s your family doing? Everything good? Nice to see you.’

“We get up to the captain’s thing, and he’s got like tears in his eyes and he’s just looking like this (stonefaced). And I’m like, ‘Hey, how have you been?’ Trying to make conversation, ‘How you been?’ Just shaking his head, won’t say a word. I’m like, ‘OK.’ Pau Gasol’s looking at me like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’ So I go back, Mike D’Antoni’s our coach. I said, ‘Mike, man. I don’t know what’s about to happen, but it’s not gonna be good.’ Mike’s a really fun-loving guy and he goes, ‘Well s***, David, he can’t beat us by himself.’ So I go, ‘OK.’ So he gets the jump ball and walks right in and makes a three. Then he makes like another driving layup. He’s got like 7 points in the first few minutes. Coach calls a timeout, he goes, ‘I may have been wrong. He might be able to do this by himself.’ But it just speaks on Kobe’s character and the Garden electric back and forth, because we stayed in that game for a long time. You just look back on it and the fans were just going nuts and Kobe’s shooting it from two steps inside halfcourt and just looking at people and he was so angry that they had given LeBron all this attention in the media. So, it’s a pretty crazy story.”