Allen Iverson had some legendary battles against Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, particularly during the 2001 NBA Finals. Iverson went up against a far superior Lakers team and pulled out a win against all the odds, despite eventually losing the series.
With those three intense personalities, there were bound to be wild moments between them on the court. And Allen Iverson told the hilarious story of what Kobe Bryant said to him when he tried to foul Shaquille O’Neal hard during a game.
“Shaq had to get assaulted every game,” Iverson said. “You know what I mean? Do you know how many times he got fouled and they didn’t call it? Like this dude right here, man?
“I remember I was playing them… It was a regular season game and I remember they threw it to him. And I tried to foul him before he was going up and jumping up. I remember jumping on his back and he took me with him. I ain’t lying, dawg. And Kobe looked at me and said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? You trying to die? Are you trying to die?’”
The only recourse against a prime Shaquille O’Neal was to ‘Hack-A-Shaq’, a strategy implemented to exploit his poor free throw shootings. Teams would load bigs up on their roster just so they could rack up fouls against Shaq and the team would still have players left. As Allen Iverson says in his story, Shaquille O’Neal was simply unstoppable during his prime, he would just burst through people trying to foul him.
Allen Iverson Was Unstoppable Against Shaquille O’Neal And Kobe Bryant In The 2001 Finals
Allen Iverson was chosen as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft, well over Kobe Bryant. And while he never achieved the team success that Bryant did, Iverson became a legend in his own right. In games against the Lakers he always stepped it up, Kobe didn’t outscore Iverson until the 6th time they played one another.
In the 2001 NBA Finals, Iverson averaged 35.6 points per game, more than either Shaquille O’Neal or Kobe Bryant. To go along with that, he also had 5.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.8 steals. So much of NBA team success is about landing with the right teammates and organizations, surely Iverson could have won a championship or two if he played with prime Shaquille O’Neal as well.
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