Transcription
Tell me, what's the most thing you remember about Kobe during that, that, uh, Western Finals? He was a dog, and he was relentless, and his mental approach to the game. Like, we played that year, and he just, he knew my minute structure. So he had watched film enough to know that George Karl, he played me the first six minutes of the first and the first six minutes of the third. And it could get tricky for me. I'm not gonna play no fourth quarters because George wouldn't play, um, a Duke guy in the fourth quarter. He told me that to my face, like, "You with the Duke, I see. I don't be messing with y'all, but you're my favorite, but you're not gonna play no fourth for me." So he knew my minute structure to the point where he would just facilitate. He wouldn't deal with no physicality. He wasn't gonna wrestle with me or get no, get no, no, didn't talk, didn't talk, no, didn't talk, no trash, didn't say nothing crazy. He would just facilitate.
Was you talking? Was you talking to him? No, because you was, you wasn't even trying to. No, that he was it for me. Like MJ, CLE, Ren, as I said, AI, like those, those are my four. I'm playing hard as I can because that's how you show, show your respect to the people that you admire. Like, you don't, I'm never going to back down. So I wanted him, I wanted to get his approval as, like, as a competitor, right? So, no, he, we, we never, he never said anything ill to me. He never, like, we never talked crazy to each other. Um, both he was physical, he competed. When he, when I went out the game, then he would go at Jr. and Anthony Carter. And then when I came back, he would pick his moments and stuff, but he would never, like, fully attack because he knew, like, that's what I was only there for.
Mhm. What was the, cuz I remember those battles and those games were fun growing up a Lakers fan. But I want to know, what was the scouting report? Like, how did you prepare for Kobe? Like, was there a scouting report or was it just, "Hey, go out there and try your best"?
Um, there was a scouting report about the same. What was it like? What was his weak? What were you trying to make? How were you trying to win that battle? Every player has a rhythm, right? And he have go-to. And as you said, he has, like, he has favorite moves and he has counters. So to be physical with him, to not let him get to his spot, to, um, to try and get into his handle a little bit, to make him rush, um, just to make everything hard. And then, like, most of the stuff you may see from me, and why the Lakers fans hate me to this day, is that you just had to just wear him down because he's gonna take a lot of shots, he's gonna be used a lot. So we had, we had different rules than we have now. So, like, we had bounties on him. And he could not get a layup because my teammates would cuss me out. George Karl, big shot, if he got a layup without me fouling him, knowing that I'm only going to play 18 minutes or not, like, I'm going to fully get cussed out. Yeah. So that's why you see me like be ultra aggressive. He beat me one time, and I, I pushed him, and he back. But that, in my mind, it wasn't to hurt him. It was, you do the repercussions by no. So I didn't get benched. No, no, no, no. Not to get benched, but like, the only other option was is to go over, go for the ball and really hurt him and like take him out the air, or just to catch him before he gets off the floor, right? So I just, like, kind of, he's about to take off, push him, and he goes out of bounds. And it's like, "Yo, why you, what you doing?" But he don't know that I have to, or I'll get fined. You feel me? Like, if you get a layup, I lose money. I get cussed out. They, they got pictures of me and Chanty and and Kenyan and Melo arguing because I wasn't physical enough. They like, they had me like on the leash and they was just like, "Mess him up." Yeah. I'm like, "All right." People looking at me like I'm crazy now. Yeah, it makes sense now that I think about it. In a Denver Nuggets uniform, because that was my role. It worked for everybody. K, Kenyan, that was Ken, that was Kenan's role. He was like, he was the bully. He controlled everything. Even he had to guard Dirk. Like, he had to get physical. And that was our level of basketball. We're gonna be physical. We're gonna wear people down because Big Shot was coming from Detroit, and that was theirs. So he gave us an identity. We got our scores, we got our man-guard, we got our general, but we gonna be physical. We gonna wear you down. We gonna fly around. We gonna have fun. And, and we going to talk. We going to talk crazy. And that, that's just like, that's just what we do. So even in that, like, and it worked. Like, for that year, it worked. We, we had an identity, and people were scared to play us.
Mmm. So Kobe come like that was dirty. Kobe, it's a fine line. Like, we physical. Different game. It's, it's, it's a different level of physicality that was allowed. And if we gonna foul you, we gonna make sure you, you feel it. Like, like, you got to go to the ground. And yeah, we not like, gonna kick you. Like, but like, if I'm, it's not gonna be a, a hand foul. Like, you going to feel it. You going to get your free throws, and I'm going to say I did it. I'm not going to act like I didn't. But, but the intent is for you to be like, "Over time." Yeah, yeah. "Over time, like, I had enough. I'm gonna stop going to the paint. Let's settle for a couple jumpers." Yeah, yeah. "And we make you settle." And then, like, because the paint was somewhere we didn't want you to come. You got into the paint, you got to know that you gonna get fouled hard. Or we, like, we coming. I got Nene behind me. I got Kenyon behind me. Like, they trying to block shots. And then we going to be physical. Our traps physical. Ball pressure physical. We just wanted to be physical at any, any point in time we could. And we wore teams down like that. So, like, the stuff with Kobe was physical. Going his post into him in the ball, he getting the paint. Like, if I can't make a play, and it was like four or five times where I couldn't really make a play. Like, I have to make sure he does not get a shot up, right? And that's where you see some of the stuff come out. And like, I, I loved him more as much as you do or any other. Like, that was like, he was basketball.
I know Kobe is so good at like masking, right? Whether y'all was getting to him or not. I know he's so good at like, you know, the just warrior mentality. At any point was y'all like, "Yeah, we, we got him. We getting them. We getting to him"?
No, there was no point in time we got him under control. No, by no means. Okay. And me and him had like the same agent. So like, I had worked out with Kobe in the summertime. Most people don't know that. Like, I've been in, uh, Santa Monica, uh, St. Monica's one-on-one him, U, Corey Maggette. Like, so I, I know Kobe. And I've competed against Kobe by this time. And I know he's not gonna give up. Like, he could have a game where he go over for 32. He's coming. He's, he's gonna keep shooting. He's gonna keep being aggressive. He's gonna keep controlling the game. Like an elephant. Yeah. Like, you can't really shake him. So never, we never thought that we had them rattled by no means. We just knew we, we had those games to the point we had games where we made mistakes at the end of the game. Like, side out of bounds play, they get a steal and they win. So we just want to control the game and be, and be the more physical team.
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