Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bean Bryantis an American retired professional basketball player. He played his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association. He entered the NBA directly from high school and won five NBA championships with the Lakers. Bryant is an 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, and 12-time member of the All-Defensive team. He led the NBA in scoring during two seasons, and ranks third on both the league's all-time regular season scoring and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth23 August 1978
CityPhiladelphia, PA
CountryUnited States of America
We did a good job of digging in defensively. We just tried to keep them uncomfortable. Try to take them out of their sets and try and take them out a little bit of the things they like to do.
It's a different challenge, but something we've tried to do all season long is just learn how to play with one another. And what I mean by that is to play to everybody's strengths, know what our weaknesses are and how to counteract that, pretty much pick each other up.
I try to show my daughter that you have to compete at everything. You can't back down. I want my kids to understand that so when somebody puts an obstacle in front of you and says you can't do something, you don't back down. You push through that to get something accomplished. I tried to set that tone for her even at an early age. She's competitive already at the age of 3. Seriously.
For me, it was about the W, and that's why I turned it on. Then I just tried to ride the wave and demoralize our opponent - and it turned into something special.
I was aggressive. I saw how they played defense and decided to come at them.
I thought we'd have our ups and downs being that it's a new system, trying to learn it. It's just moving the ball, spacing, timing, rhythm, things like that. I knew it would kind of be like a roller-coaster ride.
I think that from the start of this series we have just been playing extremely well and we are moving the ball around really well. We have just evolved into this from the start of the season, it has been process. We are just playing so well together.
It gives us confidence. It shows that our play is not a fluke. We move the ball consistently and play defense consistently. This bodes well for our confidence.
It is a physical game and especially in the playoffs it steps up to another degree. It is fun to be a part of those types of games. It is nothing personal.
Ooh, ... you just gave me goose bumps.
We executed a lot better in the second quarter. Defensively we did a great job. We played hard. Lamar had a great game.
We had mental lapses in the fourth quarter. It comes from us not playing together for a long time. It comes from inexperience.
We've made some significant strides. I look for us to make more significant strides. We're not in a position where we're playing our best basketball.
Our spacing was good, which made it very difficult to corral me. When they did, we were able to swing the ball and get open opportunities for everybody else.