Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson came into the NBA in the same draft in 1996. And while most people would put Kobe over Iverson in their all-time list, he came in as the 13th overall pick while Iverson was the first overall pick.
In the early days of their career, Allen Iverson became a star much faster than Kobe Bryant did. And once Iverson scored 41 against him in 1999, the Mamba wanted to make sure he got his revenge. He revealed how he did it years later.
“On March 19, 1999, Iverson put 41 points and 10 assists on me in Philadelphia,” Bryant wrote for the Player’s Tribune in 2017. “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.
“He would publicly say that neither of us could stop the other. I refused to believe that. I score 50. You score zero. That is what I believe. When I started guarding AI, he had 16 at the half. He finished the game with 16. Revenge was sweet.”
Kobe Bryant was built differently from any other superstar in NBA history. He wanted to truly own and dominate his opponents every time they matched up. He wanted to be the best of the very best. And this story is just another example of what made the Mamba one of the greatest to ever do it.
Kobe Bryant And Allen Iverson’s Head-To-Head Stats Show An Incredible Rivalry
Kobe Bryant would win five NBA championships in his career, and Allen Iverson would win none. But it wasn’t until his 6th game ever against Iverson that Bryant outscored him. The game Iverson scored 41 points was the 5th time they faced off, and the Sixers won that game comfortably.
The very next time they faced off is the game Bryant spoke about. Allen Iverson had just 16, while Kobe Bryant had 18 and the Lakers won by three points in their sixth matchup against one another. After that, things went Kobe’s way more often than not.
Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson faced one another 38 times in the NBA, and the Mamba’s team was victorious on 24 occasions. It was even more stark in the playoffs, with their nine games resulting in eight wins for Kobe, and just one for AI.
Although Iverson averaged more points against Kobe Bryant in their head-to-head matchups overall, Bryant is the one who got the championships, even beating AI in the 2001 NBA Finals. Bryant did everything he could to be better, and ultimately, no one would argue he wasn’t.
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