Friday marked exactly a decade since Kobe Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors. It was Bryant's career high, and the second highest individual single game scoring total in NBA history. The anniversary brought about a ton of memorable stories about the day, from Arash Markazi of ESPN's must-read memorable oral history of the day featuring quotes from tons of people involved or in attendance, to Devean George's first-person diary of how the day went down (including how Phil Jackson spent the first half trying to feed Kwame Brown).
One of the most enduring memories of the end of that game was Bryant immediately embracing his family after the buzzer sounded and he finished his post-game interview. This made it more notable that missing from all the breathless coverage of Bryant's scoring explosion was an account of the event from his family. That changed when Kobe's wife, Vanessa Bryant, took to Instagram on Friday night to share the story of how she and their family almost missed seeing probably the best game of Bryant's career in person:
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It's funny how that stuff works out sometimes. Apparently Vanessa can sense when Kobe is about to score 81 points, which if true would be a pretty cool superpower to have.