Kobe & Shaq post-game interview after going up 2-0 on the Spurs in 2001. At this point, the Lakers haven’t lost a game in 7 weeks
I was watching some old playoff games and really enjoyed this post game interview after a huge game 2 Western Conference Finals win for the Lakers. Both Kobe & Shaq were articulate and humble in their responses. You can tell they were on a mission in 01.
Backstory: Lakers just took their second straight win in San Antonio’s home court as they led the series 2-0. They would continue to sweep the series 4-0 and end up winning the ring with a 15-1 playoff record. At this point, the Lakers won their last 8 regular season games & swept the first 2 rounds of the playoffs. They haven’t lost in 7 weeks with a 17-0 record.
Shaq this game: 19/14/4 with 1 block
Kobe this game: 28/7/6 with 2 steals and 1 block
During that playoff run Shaq averaged 30⁄15 while Kobe averaged 29/7/6.
17-0 😳 god dang
What an insane duo to deal with
Having that duo and the score being 88-81. Just shows how insanely different eras are
Check out the final score in the Derek Fisher 0.4 game. I watched that game live, and at no point was the fact that the score was only 74-73 even noteworthy. As you say, shows how different the eras are.
I honestly don’t believe we will ever see 2 players of that level play together ever again. I mean, you do have Magic and Kareem but while Kareem was still great, he was over 30 when Magic was drafted and was out of his prime by the time Magic hit his.
From 2001-2004 both Kobe and Shaq were two top 10 players of all time in their primes.
Steph and KDÂ
As unbelievably great as both those guys are, neither are as good as prime kobe or prime shaq not that anyone here watched those guys
I saw both of them. Hell, I saw rookie-to-God MJ and prime Magic/Bird. We’re out here…
That was far from prime kobe. Not taking anything away from shaq hes unmatched but kd is a more efficient kobe and curry is curry super fair comparison
Curry is definitely better than Kobe, but nice unbiased flair bro.
Curry is not “definitely” better than Kobe. You could make a strong argument that he is a better offensive player but the gap in their defense is significantly larger than the gap in their offense and that’s if one accepts Curry is better on offense to begin with.
At the very least they are both in the same tier as both guys are top 10 all time and you could argue it either way.
Bro is 13 years old lol
Definitely better? How many all NBAs does he have? How many rings? The only thing he has over Kobe is 1 extra mvp and Kobe has him beat in all other accolades
I think peak Curry and KD are pretty damn close to kobe curry might have been better tbh
No a Peak KD couldn’t do what Kobe do, neither could Steph.
If defensive doesn’t matter at all, maybe. Kobe was an all-world defender in his prime, and that was a big part of why that team was so dominant.
Calling out flair when you won’t even put one on yourself is cringe
Says the guy with a whole conference. Pure comedy.
My team got taken away so kinda what I have to do now
You can still rock sonics
Just more depressing
How do you get a flair taken away?
Omg, no…
How is that better? He specified two top 10 players all time and your response is a top 10 player and a top 20 player lol
Well, for starters, OP didn’t say “we’ll never see a better pairing”; rather they said that they didn’t believe we’d “ever seen 2 players of that level play together ever again.”
Second, looking around at top X lists, there are various permutations of which of the four are in the top 10 + how they rank relative to one another.
Kobe is not top ten all time lil bro come on we gotta grow up
You just watched Brunson and Kat how can you say that /s
I get that you’re being sarcastic and obviously it’s not at all the same thing as Kobe/Shaq but I do think the Brunson/Kat pairing was underrated this whole year. I’ve been saying since last year that Brunson has become a top 5 player in the league and Kat is a top 15 player in the league. OG is also a legit star and should have always been treated as such while Bridges is a legit 20ppg level guy and Hart is among the best role players in the league. This team was always a legit contender and I’m surprised people didn’t treat them as such.
lol not even closeÂ
Didn’t we have Durant and Curry since that point?
Yes, that was the closest but I personally just don’t consider Durant to be a top 10 level guy all time.
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Kobe from 2001-2003 averaged 28/6/6 with arguably the best perimeter defense in the league for those years. He put up those numbers despite playing as a second option (at least until 2003). He was already the best perimeter player in the league at that point in his career despite his youth and the only 2 guys who were considered to be in his tier were Peak Shaq and Peak TD who were both also top 10 players of all time.
That’s supposed to be 16-1 no?
First round was best of five
Interesting, didn’t know that
Shaq would say he had 28⁄15 that game if you asked him about it.
On god 2001 was a crazy vibe before 9⁄11
Yeah if you were winning lmao
that carter graduation drama was huge back then. feel like vince would be even more hated if we had social media back then
He was already hated like crazy then, he would be seen like Ja or Zion now. Media called him lazy with no work ethic but never detailed that the Raptors FO were disrespectful to his mother.
That’s why my stock in Ja isn’t low. Dude gets suspended, comes back and all his team is traded away. How tf is a dude like Ja gon take it? He’s gonna pout and cry.
If he gets traded to Miami, I can see him bouncing back even harder than Nets VC
Lol you really taking Vince’s side over the Raptors?
wait they went 7 weeks without losing?
Shaq: “It’s good to play with the best player in the world”
looks right at Kobe
but people think Kobe was just along for the ride. Kobe straight murdered the Duncan’s Spurs every time with or without Shaq
01 vs. Spurs
Kobe: 33/7/7 on 57% TS
Shaq: 27/13/3 on 55% TS
02 vs. Spurs
Kobe: 26/5/5 on 49% TS
Shaq: 21/12/3 on 45% TS
03 vs. Spurs
Kobe: 32/5/4 on 53% TS
Shaq: 25/14/4 on 59% TS
08 vs. Spurs
Kobe: 30/6/4 on 59% TS
Forget Duncan Spurs, Kobe was always a Spurs killer - with Shaq and with Gasol. Kobe outplayed Shaq in a ton of WCF series, which as everyone knows in the early 2000’s that was the real finals. Kobe cooked the shit out of the Kings and outplayed Shaq that series too
Shaq put up the monster numbers in the Finals series during inferior compatition, but it was Kobe who was doing the heavy lifting against the West juggernauts in the early 2000’s
I love both, Shaq and Kobe. But I feel Kobe gets the brunt of the stick when he was just as pivotal part of the 3 peat even though he didn’t get the accolades. History is cruel. You had to be there watching it live to see what really happened. Or else you’d go to the box score and just assume Shaq put the monster numbers in the finals
The narrative around those two has become so nuts with people discrediting one or the other, imo those Lakers teams had the best and second best basketball player in the world on the same roster
People just ignore the fact that even though shaq was the most dominant player in the league during their threepeat; Kobe is already considered a top 5 player in the league during their run. But kids nowadays and guys like tmac just keeps looking at the box score and the “what if i played with shaq” narative.
Kobe’s ability to always find a decent look off the dribble was nasty.
31.7⁄7.0/6.2 on 49% shooting in that era through the Western Conference as the second best player in the world in playmaker mode with Shaq still being Shaq. The peak of this duo was scary because of how dominant Kobe was as a second option to Shaq’s physical dominance made the 10 rings in a row conversation very real because Kobe was 22 this finals run (and got 3 rings at 23)
Tmac a bum lmao dude saying that shit when he never made it out the first round is insane
Yup. By 2001 Kobe was considered the best perimeter player in the league and by 2002 he was considered a top 3 player in the league. The playstyles don’t fit but in terms of stature around the league the Lakers were like if you paired current Jokic with Luka or Shai. Both Kobe and Shaq were the best players at their positions.
Yeah, I don’t think that most people these days realize that there were a couple years where Kobe finished ahead of Shaq in MVP voting while they were teammates. The idea that Shaq carried Kobe is purely a modern idea from people who weren’t around and just see the 3 FMVPs.
They’re considered the greatest duo of all time for a reason!
if there was a CF MVP back then it would’ve been nice. At least discussing it now people could look back and say it wasn’t a one sided carry job
I remember the weird revisionist history here where people would say Kobe couldn’t beat complete teams like the Spurs, then you’d have to remind people of his playoff record vs the spurs.
Kobe Bryant beat most 50-win teams in the playoffs than any other player in NBA history - more than Jordan, Lebron, Kareem, Wilt, Magic, Bird, etc.
One of my favorite Kobe stats. He played in the hardest era in NBA history and STILL managed to get FIVE rings
Anytime people discredit Kobe they are discrediting every other great that played during his career because he beat them all in the playoffs
No NBA player has won more championships than he did since 2000, during the hardest Western conference era in NBA history
Not the hardest era overall. Just the hardest conference ever as the West was utterly stacked back then.
Honestly, Kobe straight murdering the pop/Duncan spurs in the playoffs is an underrated stat point for Kobes resums
Duncan and Kobe played as well against each other as the other. Duncan outplayed Kobe massively in 99 and 03, Kobe outplayed Duncan massively in 01 and 08, then in 02 and 04 they both played similarly well.
Kobe was the Spurs kryptonite during the Duncan-Pop years. The Spurs defense was predicated around forcing players into tough shots in the midrange and they were incredibly effective at that but that also just happened to be Kobe’s spot.
Hope the nephews see this
One of the reasons I actually hate the finals mvp is that people use it to basically credit a single player with a championship. And only ever credits a single series as being important at that
Just for more context though for people who maybe weren’t old enough for this series. Shaq was DEFINITELY better than Kobe in 2001 and was the main guy. Kobe was playing great but it was also pretty easy in comparison for him since the Spurs were throwing everything in the universe at Shaq to try and stop him and he was still getting those numbers anyways. Its why they were such good teammates it was nearly impossible to stop Shaq to begin with but you definitely couldn’t also stop Kobe at the same time
For anyone that’s never actually watched prime Shaq you just need to go back and watch it. Dude would probably end Wemby’s career the first game they played against each other. He would probably just run right through him or drop some kind of dunk that broke Wemby and the backboard at the same time lol or just fucking push him into the second row
We are posting sub 50% TS like it’s a flex. Holy shit Kobe Stan’s are lost
yes you are lost lmao. do you know what league avg TS was in 2000’s?
btw guess the TS% of the 2026 FMVP vs. Spurs
the game was complexly different back then you dunce. You have to be 14 years old max
3’s weren’t a thing back then and free throw usage rate wasn’t nearly as high back then. Compared to the fact mid range jumpers were a big thing back then
Hardenbrain always sad to see
This was cute. We all know how Kobe and Shaq beefed later in their careers, but at this point of time you can tell they both loved each other like blood brothers
They locked in for the playoffs but they beefed throughout the entire time they were teammates. Even in this interview you have Shaq addressing the idea that they don’t get along and trying to dismiss it because it was a publicly known and reported thing already.
Here’s an LA times story from only a few months earlier in that 2001 season: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-21-sp-15216-story.html
Shaq glares after Kobe in the dressing room. He notes how long the reporters talk to Kobe. If one spends too much time with Bryant, O’Neal puts him down as a Kobe man and treats him accordingly. Until now, when Shaq signaled he was upset, he was basically speaking for his teammates, who had their own problems with Bryant’s distance and impetuosity. Now teammates are moving to a middle position–exasperated by both sides, angered by the prospect of seeing their season trashed out of pique.
Shaq glares after Kobe in the dressing room. He notes how long the reporters talk to Kobe. If one spends too much time with Bryant, O’Neal puts him down as a Kobe man and treats him accordingly.
Until now, when Shaq signaled he was upset, he was basically speaking for his teammates, who had their own problems with Bryant’s distance and impetuosity.
Now teammates are moving to a middle position–exasperated by both sides, angered by the prospect of seeing their season trashed out of pique.
Cool to have to look up the definition of a word from a sportswriter back then in impetuosity. Also I’m pretty sure someone would have messed up pique for peak now
You can tell how different writing in general has changed over the years. I feel like I’m reading an excerpt out of a book but this would have been just fluff in the newspaper back then.
Part of that is because the author, Mark Heisler, had been writing since 1969. It’s a bit different comparing a guy in his 30th year of writing for papers, and a guy in his tenth year writing for social media and hot takes on ESPN.
Mark Heisler or kendrick perkins?
Shaq probably shit in his shoe at least once.
It was always love deep down tbh. You can tell when Kobe died it truly devastated Shaq
Man Shaq was so humble here
Shaq 8⁄21? Goddam
The Spurs had 2 of the best defensive players in the league in Duncan and Robinson. People kind of forget that Robinson was still an All NBA guy and finished top 5 in DPOY in 2001.
It happens lol
Well when you have 2 top 10 all time players in NBA history on your team, it’s ok if one has a bad game. The other will step up and carry to win the game
Afro Kobe was the coolest Kobe. I wish he would have turned it into dreads instead of shaving.
He was balding..
Kobe just like me fr
Afro Kobe Frobe FTFY
Kobe and Shaq were such an on-again-off again couple lol
All the crazy shit they said about each other while on the same team in that era, yet here Shaq is repeatedly calling Kobe the best player in the world and praising him lol
They really were like brothers. Squabbling and fighting for no good reason, but then also supporting eachother.
Oh wow the memories, those were the OG Duncan Spurs before they got Bowen, Manu and Parker.
Didn’t Samaki Walker switch sides later?
Yeah and we hated him. 01 was a dark time. It didn’t help our starting SG got injured vs Dallas and missed games 1 and 2.
He came back in game 3 and 4 and was not good lol
The Derek Anderson era was filled with doubt and Samaki Walker hatred
RIP Craig
Shaq is so fucking lean here.
Hella jawline.
No one could beat Kobes work ethic
Craig Sager was a POS no one should ever forget that.