You've got a point (no pun intended).
I see it like this: basketball is about scoring more points than the opponent, and it's a superstars league. Simply put, people want to see stars shine and more times than not that means scoring a bunch. Right or wrong, I think we associate dominance with scoring, and even more so when that scoring comes off nice moves. That's why people still go back to Kobe's 61 points at the Garden while Lebron had a more complete 50 something game days later. No one remembers Lebron's game.
It's a bias we have towards scoring I think, IF that scoring still somewhat comes within the flow of the game. As much as he is a chucker (this is coming from a stan), a lot of Kobe's big scoring games came, crazily enuogh, within the flow of the game. The Knicks and especially Raptors didn't even feel like he was "stat-padding", he was just scoring almost every time he had the ball. If a guy is hot and gets 50 on something like 18 for 30 shooting with 3 pointers and free throws in a relatively tight game, I don't see anything wrong with it. If it's 50 on 18 for 48 shooting lol in a blowout, maybe yeah