Few men have torched NBA defenses the way Kobe Bryant did during his two-decade-long career in the league. The Black Mamba was an assassin on the court who relished in ripping the hearts out of opposing teams and fans alike with late-game takeovers, and the New York Knicks were on the receiving end of quite a few of those.
For his career, Bryant averaged 26.5 points per game against the Knicks, and that average went over 29 per game at Madison Square Garden. Kobe, just like many of the other stars in the league, relished putting on a show at MSG and Iman Shumpert recalled a memorable moment going up against him. He had stolen the ball from Bryant a couple of times during the game, and heading into the fourth, Kobe had some words for Shumpert, after which he went off on the Knicks. Here’s Shumpert talking about what happened back then during an interview with Vlad TV:
“He checked in and was like you had a great game young fella. You know what’s crazy too… like during the game I felt like he was doing it (only) to me and when I went back and watched, he only hit another like two buckets on me. I like pissed him off and he killed our whole team. If you go look there’s a different person guarding him after every possession. He washed everybody, he pulled a trey from like 30 on me… he split the double team off the glass, threw it to Pau (Gasol) on the corner, it was just, it was bad.”
Just another classic Mamba moment right there, trying to put a rookie in his place. The game Shumpert mentions here took place on February 10th, 2012, and the Knicks did actually hang on to win the game.
Still, the Mamba gave them a run for their money as he scored 14 points in the fourth quarter. Shumpert does seem to recollect that game pretty well all these years later, as he was on point regarding what Kobe did to them in that one. It’s memorable moments like these that lead to quite a few, including Kyrie Irving, to claim that Kobe is the GOAT.
