Antawn Jamison’s memory:
When he, Kobe both scored 51 — and the Warriors won in OT.
PHILADELPHIA — Antawn Jamison was at his Charlotte, N.C., home Sunday night when he found the DVD, plugged it into his old DVR and slumped onto his couch.
Hours earlier, Jamison — a twotime NBA AllStar who’s now the Wizards’ director of pro personnel — had learned that his friend and former teammate, Kobe Bryant, had died in a helicopter crash with his 13yearold daughter, Gianna, and seven others. As Jamison watched footage of the Warriors’ Dec. 6, 2000, win over Bryant’s Lakers, he let reality sink in, sobbing for the first time in as long as he can remember.
“In that moment, it was just a time for me to let go and release everything that had been building up inside,” Jamison told The Chronicle. “Anyone who competed against Kobe or had him as a teammate knew he was a special dude.”
Like so many of Bryant’s opponents, the Warriors often fell victim to his greatness. In his 20 years with the Lakers, he averaged 27 points and 4.7 assists against Golden State, guiding Los Angeles to a 5017 record in those games.
The highlights were scarce for a simple reason: The two teams weren’t good at the same time. When Bryant was making the Lakers nearperennial contenders, the Warriors were a leaguewide punchline. Late in Bryant’s career, when Golden State was blossoming into a dynasty, Los Angeles was mired in a rare rebuild.
Bryant never faced the Warriors in the playoffs, which leaves that Dec. 6, 2000, overtime thriller as perhaps his most memorable game against the franchise he’d come to revere. With the Lakers trailing in the final three minutes of overtime, Jamison and Bryant traded six straight highpressure scores.
When Lakers center Horace Grant clanged a layup with six seconds left, Jamison ripped the rebound away from Bryant. After Bryant missed the gametying 3point try at the buzzer, teammates embraced Jamison at midcourt, reveling in a 125122 upset of the defending NBA champs.
Three days after scoring 51 points in a loss to the SuperSonics, Jamison had posted 51 points and 13 rebounds to outduel Bryant, then 22, who scored 51 points for his first of his 25 career 50point games. It was the first NBA game to boast two 50point scorers since the Warriors’ Wilt Chamberlain had 63 and the Lakers’ Elgin Baylor scored 50 on Dec. 14, 1962.
“You knew when you played Kobe that you were pretty much going against pure greatness,” said Jamison, who was the best player on that 200001 Golden State team that lost a franchiseworst 65 games. “I just remember the accomplishment of feeling like I made it, just how proud my friends and my family were.”
Twelve years later, after Jamison signed a oneyear contract with the Lakers for the veteran’s minimum, he arrived at Staples Center to find his locker stall positioned next to Bryant’s. From time to time that season, Bryant turned toward him and, with a smile, said, “Hey, 51PointGame Antawn!”
Jamison was nearing the end of his 17year career, but he sometimes felt like a rookie compared with Bryant. During a team flight late one night, Bryant summoned Jamison to the seat next to him, pointed toward game video on his tablet and said, “On this play, I don’t see you, so just give me a quick yell or say something so I can see you. I want to make sure that never happens again.”
While watching from the Lakers’ bench during a game against the Warriors on April 12, 2013, Jamison was stunned when Bryant tore his left Achilles tendon and still sank two freethrow tries to tie the score. Now, like so many of Bryant’s former rivals and teammates, Jamison is struggling to accept that the same man who showed no vulnerability in the face of a careerthreatening injury is dead at 41.
“This is the guy who always finds a way to bounce back from everything,” Jamison said. “I just cherish the moments that we had. The first time he scored at least 50, I was there, and I scored 51. We’ll always have that.”