Kobe Bryant Recalls Being Angry at Allen Iverson's 41 Points vs. Lakers in 1999
Kobe Bryant's competitive streak during his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers was legendary, and in a piece published Tuesday for the Players' Tribune, he recalled a game on March 19, 1999, in which Allen Iverson dropped 41 points and 10 assists on him.
Bryant detailed his anger and his obsession with the Philadelphia 76ers guard after that contest:
"Working harder wasn’t enough.
I had to study this man maniacally.
I obsessively read every article and book I could find about AI. I obsessively watched every game he had played, going back to the IUPU All-American Game. I obsessively studied his every success, and his every struggle. I obsessively searched for any weakness I could find.
I searched the world for musings to add to my AI Musecage.
This led me to study how great white sharks hunt seals off the coast of South Africa.
The patience. The timing. The angles.
On Feb 20, 2000, in Philadelphia, PJ gave me the assignment of guarding AI at the start of the second half. No one knew how much this challenge meant to me.
I wanted him to feel the frustration I felt.
I wanted everyone who laughed at the 41 and 10 he put on me to choke on their laughter.
"
During the 2000 game Bryant referenced, Iverson had 16 points at halftime, and Kobe pointed out Iverson finished the contest with 16 after he started guarding him.
Even though Bryant got his revenge that night and the Lakers won, he noted Iverson's 41-point outburst represented a turning point.
"I swore, from that point on, to approach every matchup as a matter of life and death," Bryant wrote. "No one was going to have that kind of control over my focus ever again."
Bryant turned into one of the best players in league history by the time he retired in 2016, winning five NBA titles, two NBA Finals MVP awards, one NBA MVP award and being named to the All-NBA first team 11 times.
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