“I muzzled Kobe Bryant. The next game, he came into my locker room and…

By Guillaume K. | Sports journalist

Kobe Bryant, like all great legends of this sport, had infinite confidence in his abilities. So after being muzzled by Andre Iguodala, he had decided to take revenge. And he did it with quite brilliant arrogance.

Basketball, perhaps more than any other sport, is based on trust. That already granted to his teammates, since it takes excellent communication and automatisms to obtain results, but also and above all self-confidence. It is often she who dictates the quality of a player’s performance.

If he feels good, then he will see the basket as big as an ocean and he will have difficulty missing his target. On the other hand, no matter how talented he is, a basketball player who is not confident will go through a crisis of skill. Something that legends like Larry Bird, Michael Jordan or even Kobe Bryant must not have known often during their career.

Kobe Bryant’s crazy provocation on Andre Iguodala

They were so sure of their qualities that they did not hesitate to provoke their opponents before even entering the field. While on his former coach Mark Jackson’s podcast, Andre Iguodala told a pretty crazy anecdote about the Mamba. He has already returned to his locker room to tell him his number of points.

One day, Kobe Bryant came into our locker room when I was with the Sixers. I was on the field warming up, so he ran into Lou Williams and the rest of the team. He said, “Where’s Andre?!” You will tell him that I am going to score 50 points tonight. » He was put on the bench with 6 minutes left to play, he was at 49 points. We took a beating.

In fact, in the previous match against the Lakers, I muzzled him. He had to finish the game at 2/17 in shooting, and he had only scored 17 points. At a press conference, Phil Jackson said that it was the best defensive performance on Kobe Bryant that he had seen in his career. This rematch was in Philadelphia, his hometown, he had noted the date on his calendar.

During his Philadelphia years, Andre Iguodala had the good idea to show himself by limiting Kobe Bryant… The problem is that the Mamba was the resentful type, and he was only waiting for the opportunity to take revenge. For the reunion, he even came to the Sixers locker room to announce the color, and he kept his promise with a 49-point card… Confidence is everything in this sport.

Kobe Bryant hated running into defenders who could stand up to him. So after a failed meeting against Andre Iguodala, he made it a point to take revenge with a score of almost 50 points.