米切尔说：“我不认为夺走过去我和年轻人们的努力是合适的。”他指的是年轻的森林狼球员卡尔·安东尼·唐斯、安德鲁·威金斯和扎克·拉文。“作为一名教练，我觉得当你拥有年轻球员的时候，谈话不应该都是关于我的。应该是，我的工作做得足够好吗？谈话应该是关于球员的。”
在2017-18赛季的最后一次交手中，布莱恩特在洛杉矶得到38分并击败了森林狼。米切尔在比赛结束后说，他“憎恨”布莱恩特，因为科比多年来一直折磨他。这是一个调侃的描述，但一些人仍以字面意思来曲解他的本意。
“我这样说是出于尊敬、爱戴和钦佩，”米切尔说。“伙计，我恨他。”
所以，米切尔非常重视布莱恩特的球衣退役。他称科比是历史第二好的得分后卫。
十几年后，当球迷们在镇上遇到他时，米切尔偶尔会被问及那场比赛，但他说这并不像人们想象的那么频繁。这位54岁的伙计仍然希望有一天能有机会成为一名主教练，他坚持认为他从那场比赛中吸取的教训，以及接下来的一切都会帮助他。
“下一次我会是一个更好的教练，我会是一个更好的人，”米切尔说。“所以当我回顾所有这些事情，科比·布莱恩特的81分，这是如何发生的，以及我得到的批评，这些使我成长，成为一个真正的教练，一个真正的男人。”
原文：
Sam Mitchell reflects on Kobe’s 81: ‘I don’t think too many were volunteering to guard him that night’
Jon Krawczynski
When Kobe Bryant looks up into the rafters at Staples Center on Monday night, a curtain will drop to unveil the Nos. 8 and 24, the two jerseys he wore during an epic 20-year run with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Lakers may as well retire 81, too.
As much as Bryant has been defined by the numbers 8, 24 and 5 (championships), it can be argued that the first number most think about when they hear the name Kobe is 81. His point total against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006 is widely viewed as the modern-day scoring record, the post-Wilt benchmark.
In some ways, 81 has followed Sam Mitchell’s career as well.
Mitchell was the coach on the opposite bench when Bryant made 28 of 46 shots and 18 of 20 free throws to rally the Lakers to a 122-104 win that night. For years, Mitchell was asked about being at the bottom of the mountain when the avalanche comes. For years, he resisted going down that road.
But now that he is no longer an active head coach and is a full-time analyst for Turner Sports, which will be televising the Lakers game against the Golden State Warriors and the halftime ceremony honoring Bryant on Monday night on NBA TV, Mitchell is finally ready to talk about that fateful night nearly 12 years ago.
“Never when you were watching it are you thinking, it never crossed my mind he was going to get 81,” Mitchell said with a chuckle in a telephone conversation with The Athletic. “I knew he was having a great game, but it never crossed my mind he was going to get 81.”
He wasn’t the only one.
“Not even in my dreams,” Bryant said after the game. “That was something that just happened. It’s tough to explain. It’s just one of those things.”
Looking at the box score from that night and seeing the 81 at the end of Bryant’s line is difficult to grasp.
It’s the second-highest single-game total in league history, of course behind Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary 100 in 1962. David Robinson’s 71-point game for the Spurs against the Clippers in 1994 was the only time a player has gotten within 10 points of Bryant’s binge in the last four decades.
“I always said, if Kobe would’ve had 81 and we would’ve won the game, he would’ve been called selfish,” Mitchell said. “So it’s amazing how fine a line selfishness is.”
Watching it unfold in real time, all Mitchell could do was throw his hands in the air.
“I’m trying to figure out how to stop it,” Mitchell said of what was going through his head as Bryant took over. “I’m saying to myself, ‘What the you-know-what? How is he doing this?’
“We made him pick his dribble up, he pump-faked and then does a 360-fade-away-jump shot. All net. And I’m sitting here with my hands on top of my head like what else can a defender do?”
“That’s the thing about it,” Mitchell said. “As upsetting as you may want to feel, it was Kobe Bryant. If you look at that night and the shots that he made, it was unbelievable.”
In the years that followed, Bryant was lionized for his remarkable scoring night and Mitchell was pilloried for his inability to contain him.
Accompanying Bryant in the Lakers starting lineup that night were Lamar Odom, Smush Parker, Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown. The other eight players who logged at least eight minutes in the game shot a combined 14 for 42 (33 percent), yet Bryant kept getting free.
Jalen Rose and Mike James, two veterans for the Raptors in that game, have previously criticized Mitchell’s perceived unwillingness to change things up during the game.
