Kobe-Iverson battles cemented legends
WILMINGTON, Del. – Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson will always be intertwined because they were both selected in the 1996 draft, prodigies who changed the NBA in their own unique way.
The 76ers chose Iverson, who starred at Georgetown under coach John Thompson, first overall, while Bryant was picked 13th by Charlotte, which then traded him to the Lakers. Bryant was straight out of Lower Merion High School near Philadelphia, and he was heavily criticized for skipping college because he wasn’t a big man.
Iverson was unlike anyone else the NBA had seen before, a 6-foot guard who fearlessly challenged players a foot taller than him, who rejected convention and pretty much everything else, especially practice.
Bryant was also unlike anyone else the NBA had seen before, too, a fearless, relentless player and worker, who never settled for anything less than excellence – from himself as well as his teammates. Iverson had those traits, too. In remembering their epic battles through the years, I prefer to look at a game nearly 10 years ago to the day that Bryant died, on Jan. 29, 2010. It was an otherwise meaningless game. The Sixers were 15-30, going nowhere, and Iverson was 34 and no longer the explosive player of his heyday.
Yet at halftime, Iverson and Bryant each had just two points, and the Lakers led by nine in front of a somnolent soldout crowd.
Then everything changed.
“It felt like 2001 again,” Bryant said after the game. “It was like back in the day.”
It was easy to see why.
Bryant scored six of the Lakers’ first eight points of the third quarter, giving Los Angeles a 16-point lead. The Lakers still led by 12 with about five minutes left in the quarter. All of a sudden, Iverson drained a 3-pointer, then another, then a 3-point play, followed by a driving layup for 11 straight 76ers’ points, all in a span of 21⁄2 minutes.
After Willie Green hit a basket, the 76ers were within three points.
Not to be outdone, Bryant followed with 12 straight Lakers points, pushing the Lakers’ lead back to 10 early in the fourth quarter.
Iverson answered with 4 straight points, getting the 76ers back to within six with just under 8 minutes left.
The crowd was on its feet, realizing that it was seeing a classic showdown between two NBA legends.
Then Bryant started covering Iverson, and the Sixers never got closer. Iverson scored just two more points. Bryant finished with 24 points and Iverson 23 in the Lakers’ 99-91 win.
“It was fun,” Bryant said when asked why he decided to guard Iverson. “He got hot and the crowd got behind him. I thought this would be a fun challenge to step up and guard him, and give the people what they want.”
Bryant gave the people what they wanted, and more. So did Iverson, as the two got the best out of each other for what turned out to be the last time.
Iverson played in just four more games the rest of that season, never again coming close to that night when he was the player of his youth, going against a player who was just as fierce and just as fearless.