One of the moments that will always stay with me about Kobe Bryant came after the Lakers had lost Game 4 of their first-round series against Oklahoma City in 2010 -- or, as Phil Jackson used to call it, "Oklahoma," saying it quizzically, as though it might be a planet, not a state.
A rising Thunder team built around Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook had surprisingly pulled even with the big, bad, glamorous Lakers, sending the best-of-7 series back to Staples Center tied 2-2. One of the reasons was Thabo Sefolosha's smothering defense on Bryant, who sputtered to a 5-for-10 shooting night.
Afterward, in the cramped visiting locker room at Chesapeake Energy Arena, Bryant was asked if Sefolosha had become one of the top perimeter defenders in the league.
Bryant shot the questioner a side-eye that would've made Westbrook jealous, then spat, "Sure" in that general direction while rolling his eyes.
The Black Mamba doled out defensive praise only when it had been earned, often through years of battle.
Sefolosha, in fact, would become one of the tougher players for Bryant to face from that point on in his career. But earning a spot in Bryant's defensive ring of honor -- a rare group worthy of his derision, trash talk, counter moves and respect -- took time.
Gary Payton, Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Ron Artest, Bruce Bowen, Ruben Patterson -- the self-proclaimed "Kobe Stopper" -- and Raja Bell, to name a few. And certainly, Tony Allen, who Bryant anointed in this, his farewell season, "the best defender I ever faced."
"My approach was to try to force him one way," Allen told CBS Sports. "When that didn’t work, give him another look. Reach a little bit. Reach at the hand that was dribbling the ball. Try to distract him. Pull his jersey if I had to -- just kind of throw everything but the kitchen sink at him defensively and live with the result."
Bryant and Tony Allen dueled famously in the 2010 Finals, which Bryant has identified as his most rewarding and meaningful championship. Two years earlier, the Celtics had physically dominated the Lakers, dismissing them in six games and teaching them a lesson about what kind of fortitude it would take to get past them.
With Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo needed to fuel Boston's offensive engine, Tony Allen knew the task of dealing with Bryant would be his, and mostly, his alone.
"I wasn’t calling for any help," he said. "I just knew that was my task at hand and I wanted to try to carry it out the best way possible."
Their relationship was often contentious and evolved in much the same way as that between Bryant and Bell, whose job it was to lock down Bryant in those epic postseason battles with the Phoenix Suns in 2006 and '07.
"I just kept trying to guard him," said Bell, now an analyst for CBS Sports. "That was my job. And so I guess at some point -- I don’t know when it was -- there was at least a modicum of respect for the fact that I just kept trying to do it."
Bryant and Bell first locked up in the 2001 NBA Finals, when Bell had been a late addition to Larry Brown's Philadelphia 76ers on a 10-day contract. Then 24, Bell was part of a platoon that Brown sent at Bryant in ultimately futile waves. The Lakers won in five games to capture Bryant's second title.
Bell moved on to Dallas and then Utah, reveling in the task of going toe-to-toe with Bryant multiple times a year -- if not the bloody lips and hurt feelings that often came with the job. They'd sparred in the media, too; Bell at one point called Bryant "pompous and arrogant," and Bryant responded with a shivering, "I don't know this kid. I don't need to know this kid. Don't want to. Maybe he wasn't hugged enough as a kid."
Their personal grudge match boiled over in Game 5 of a 2006 first-round series between the Lakers and Suns, when Bell famously clotheslined Bryant on a drive to the basket, as seen in the video below.
"He was catching it on the elbow a lot in that pinch-post area, where they ran the blind pig out of the triangle," Bell said. "It's a hard position to guard a guy on the floor because you can’t be in full denial or they'll throw it over your head. You kind of have to be three-quarters because if he spins out, there's nobody behind to protect you. I’d be on his shoulder trying to half-deny him, and it opened me up. In his mind, he’s probably holding me off with the left elbow while trying to receive the ball with the other hand. On my side, I was getting hit with elbows.
"I had my lip busted a couple of times," he said. "Let’s be real: In the NBA, people pay to see Kobe score a lot of points. They don’t pay to see Tony Allen or me or Bruce Bowen hold a guy to a lower field-goal percentage. The refs didn’t do s*** about it. I don’t know what precipitated it that moment. I just know that my mouth was done taking blows to it."
The Suns won Game 5, and Bell was suspended for Game 6 -- which Phoenix won anyway, 126-118 in overtime. With Bell back in Bryant's face for 40-plus minutes in Game 7, the Suns eliminated the Lakers in a 121-90 blowout.
"Just me being there every time he turned around, maybe there was a respect that he gained for that," Bell said. "I’d get him with the strip, and he’d say, 'Damn, I forgot you got quick hands.' Next time, I’d go for the strip and he’d hit me with a counter I wasn’t ready for. We did have some back and forths in terms of strategies and counters. You could always count on there being some s*** involved."
Bryant and Bell squared off again in the first round in 2007, with Bell and the Suns once again coming out on top -- this time, in five games, despite Bryant averaging 32.8 points on 46 percent shooting. Within weeks, Bryant was publicly demanding a trade.
"For a guy who never thought he'd play in the NBA," Bell said, "to be a part of that was pretty cool."
With merely one game left in this, his 20th and final season, Bryant has been more playful in his approach -- using rematches with old adversaries as opportunities to stroll down memory lane.
In the Lakers' first game this season against Memphis, where Tony Allen now resides and remains one of the league's feistiest defenders, he asked Bryant for a signed jersey. Bryant told him, "I've got something else for you."
"The second time we played them, he didn’t have it," Allen said. "The third time, he didn’t have it. The last time we played them, he sent the ball boy over: 'Kobe Bryant said he’s got a present for you. He says he ain’t forgot about you.' Because I thought he had forgot about me."
The present was a pearly white pair of Bryant's shoes, personally signed by the Black Mamba: "To Tony, the best defender I ever faced!"
"I just put my head down and almost cried," Allen said. "He’s pretty much my Michael Jordan in my eyes. And for him to be arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game, I get to actually say, 'That guy knew who I was.'"
In the end, the term "Kobe Stopper" was a misnomer. Nobody really stopped Bryant, but the glory came in the effort -- in the competition.
"After the game," Allen said, "I just told him I appreciate all the memories man, all the battles. I told him I’m gonna miss him."
