Kobe Bryant 20 points on 8-25 shooting vs the Pistons 2004 NBA Finals Game 4 highlights
Great defense by Detroit. Game plan throughout that series was to slow down Kobe. They executed.
They turned Kobe into a midrange volume chucker and trusted the wall behind Prince/Big Ben. Textbook “make Shaq beat us” series.
No, it was make Kobe beat us.
Shaq never attacks unless he’s fully in position.
So if he’s not next to the paint, he just passes out.
They are saying,
Make Kobe take tough ass jumpers when we seal off shaq for possessions.
Their whole gameplan was force Kobe to give up the ball before passing to Shaq or take contested jumpers.
As bad as Kobe shot they were within 3 with 9 minutes to go.
That lack of scoring was the Pistons downfall
Rasheed Wallace might be the best example of a great NBA player that didn’t believe in himself enough. He should have been taking like 20 shots a game, run a lot of the offense through him, but he kinda always wanted to just be one of the guys. He became like a suped up Robert Horry when he should have been stacking all-nba spots.
Robert Horry
How dare you mention that name
Not in that season though. Rasheed shot 49%TS that season. It should have been Billups jacking up much more 3s instead of just taking 4 a game.
Uh they won the championship that year
Man they coulda won like 3 if they had a real scorer like Carmelo
Ben Wallace thinks they would’ve won 0 with Carmelo. He’s on record saying that. He says for sure they never win in 2004 nor 2005 (where they made it to game 7), and only maybe later but by that time, Wallace had already left Detroit and without Wallace, their defense wasn’t good enough.
One of the biggest what ifs
just shows how ridiculous it is that he’s in the goat convo. he had real “superteams”. aint no way someone wins the majority of their rings as a sidekick and loses a finals as the main reason (also as a sidekick somehow) and is near players such as lebron or even jordan.
So if Kobe is Robin who was the Batman in the non Shaq years? Gtfooh.
bruh u r slow af, obvi kobe was batman. yall kobe fans dumb af
Considering Derek Fisher won with both Shaq and Kobe, and has more wins all time in the playoffs, I will go with Derek.
His game 3 heroics in 2010 was amazing.
I honestly think LeBron copied Kobe in 2011.
Kobe didn’t want Shaq to have a 4th Finals MVP and LeBron didn’t want Wade to get his 2nd while he had zero.
So they’re rated properly next to each other.
LeBron scored 8 points in a finals game, has never made a game winner or assisted a game winner in the Finals (LOL), and lost to DIRK on a superteam😂😂😂😂 Sipping that delulu juice again, huh Bronstan?🧃🧃
Cold Beef Bryant 🥶
3735928559 iykyk (kidding, rip)
Bro seen them post about the 40 points on 80% fg shooting in the wcf against the spurs and said I got to try start the negative narrative back up
I mean one person cherry picked an atypically good game from Kobe. Another person cherry picked a atypically bad game from Kobe so it kind of evens out.
Stop using that word. You used your ‘atypical’ quota for the day
Tell em
pistons strategy worked perfectly
double/triple kobe, defend shaq 1on1 and dare payton/malone to score
shaq could never figure out ben wallace despite having a huge physical advantage
He’s defended straight up one on one by Tayshaun Prince for that entire video…
You’ve clearly never watched these games fully because two other pistons would always collapse onto Kobe becuause the role players were non threats
This is every single shot attempt from that game and every single time he took a jumper it was one-on-one. Of course, when he drove toward the rim, other people came over to defend the rim. That’s how the NBA works
The reason he was attempting those jumpers was because they loaded up with two. This is exactly why vast majority of his perimeter shots stemmed from off ball movements.
He should’ve made more tho.
Yeah, a lot of those were makeable jumpers
I mean this was zone + hand check against the best defense in the modern era.
We are probably missing a lot of the physical pushes Prince was committing because he was allowed to.
Fun fact, mark cuban protested hand-check after watching how Kobe was guarded this series, because they were just pushing and hitting him every possession… but this haunted him in 2006 when Wade had like 100 FTA lol
Fyi, this era should’ve never happened. It’s absolutely insane that the NBA would reward unskilled players for being unskilled.
Oh you can’t move? You can just stay in the paint and load up.
Oh you are not fast enough to guard perimeter guys? Oh, it’s fine, just use your arms to push ur mark.
Either or is fine. But having both at the same time was awful awful basketball
He played bad and should have passed the ball the shaq more, but he was probably jealous that Shaq kept winning the finals MVP every time they went to the finals
Ok lol
Sorry I didn’t pay attention to your long-winded essay filled with excuses for Kobe shooting 8-25 while Shaq was dominating down low
I watched the entire series live
someone answered you already, but that’s because you are watching a game 4 with detroit having completely dominated the lakers on game 3 to an embarassing degree.
bryant knows the strategy perfectly well by know, if he tries to drive everyone will collapse onto him and leave malone, payton and the other laker player open. this is why kobe is taking the shot early, because that’s as open as he will ever get.
pistons are limiting shaq scoring options by wallace not letting him gain position half of the times he receives the ball and shaq does not initiate his move if he does not have the position he likes no matter if this is game 1 or 100.
Kobe was ass the entire series and shot them out of a championship.
Pistons beat the shit out the Lakers
I always thought this series hurt Phil Jackson’s legacy badly.
Larry Brown coached circles around him in this series in Xs and Os, but Jackson is still a legend because NBA coaching is as much about managing egos as it is strategy.
Bad take considering Phil had just beaten Larry Brown’s sixers 3 years earlier in 5 games
shaq made his career out of beating the shit out of opposing centers lol
They didn’t double or triple, they baited him into long mid range jumpers by giving him space so he wouldn’t play make for others and packing the paint with the Wallaces. They played him like a fiddle with how overzealous he was about “being the guy” in ‘04 as well.
But really the Lakers didn’t have much of a chance against a backline like that since they lost their shooting edge from years prior with Fisher (Fuck Derek Fisher) not getting open enough and Big shot bob gone, he couldn’t play-make for others like he had before, so he let that shit rip instead. Malone, GP severally hampered their spacing as well.
He had to take long mid range jumpers because they were zoning.
Lot of these perimeter shots are Kobe within the flow of the offense.
He just missed. lol
Shaq averaged 26.6 on 63.1% shooting. It’s not really Shaq’s fault that Kobe shot them out of the series.
Shaq was out of gas early into every 3rd quarter. He wasnt capable of scoring more on that shooting.
Shaq only averaged 21.5 on 58.4% shooting in the regular season. He averaged 16.2 on 51.5% in round 1, 22.5 on 63.5% in round 2, and 20.7 on 56.9% in the WCF and then 26.6 on 63.1% in the Finals.
Shaq had his best series of the playoffs that year in the 2004 Finals and played better than he did in the regular season. They lost because Kobe jacked up 22.6 FGA per game on 45.6% TS. Shaq has no blame in the 2004 Finals loss.
Edit: I know I’ve really triggered some Kobe glazers when you guys downvote a comment that is just pure factual stats.
That has nothing to with the fact wallace outworked shaq and shaq was done and incapable of avging 35ppg on 63% fg as he was out of gas early every game.
Bro there’s more guys on the team than just Shaq and Kobe, but Kobe refused to let any of them shoot. Luke Walton only took 13 shots in the whole series and he averaged more assists a game than Kobe. Kobe 100% shot the Lakers out of the 2004 Finals.
They also weren’t shooting well. And they were often passing instead of taking shots. They had chances to shoot - they just didn’t.
Did Kobe force some shots? Absolutely. Did he have a bad shooting series? 100% But let’s give credit to the Pistons just as much as we rag on Kobe here, because Shaq was worn down by the 4th quarter, Kobe wasn’t making shots, and neither was anyone else on the Lakers. That was an all-time defensive performance.
Oh the Pistons 100% get tons of credit. That is one of my favorite teams of all-time. The roster construction was perfect.
That said, Kobe stans don’t get to nitpick at every bad series LeBron has ever had or trash MJ for going 1-9 in the playoffs pre-Pippen while totally glossing over all of Kobe’s failures. They’ll post about the 2001 WCF over and over claiming it shows Kobe is GOAT without ever acknowledging that the 01 Spurs didn’t have a great roster outside of Duncan and Robinson. Then when someone posts about the 04 Finals they try passing the blame on to Shaq or the supporting guys.
This also wasn’t Kobe’s only bad playoff series of 2004. He put up 19.3 FGA per game on 41.4% FG% and 26.7% 3P% in the WCF. He put up 20.2 FGA per game on 38.6% FG% and 21.1% 3P% in the first round. He was a blatant chucker in the 2004 playoffs.
How in god’s name are you criticizing Kobe for his WCF performance when he had
24/4/6 with 52% TS (+3RTS)?
Shaq was even worse that series.
What in the world are you talking about? Kobe took 44 more shots than Shaq in that series to score 22 more points than Shaq.
In the WCF Shaq went 20.7⁄15.7⁄2.8 on 54.9% TS with 3.0 blocks per game.
Because it was difficult to get the ball to shaq in post situations because of hand check + zone.
Like what are you not getting.
You are watching film on these attempts
ALOT of them are within the flow of the offense. ALOT of them are Kobe using back screens to try to get the ball and a shot.
Kobe should’ve SHOT better, sure. But shaq having a great scoring game doesn’t mean lakers can
“Oh just give the ball to shaq”
Because that’s the part they were struggling with.
It wasn’t just this series though. Kobe was going hero ball throughout the entire 2004 playoffs. He averaged 20.9 FGA per game on 50.6% TS. It’s a big part of the reason that the Lakers blew it up after that season. Kobe made it very obvious through his play that he had no interest in sharing the spotlight with anyone.
50.6 TS in that era vs those defenses was fine.
I just don’t think you understand how efficiency works..
That’s +2% RTS.
Kobe’s box stats were better than Shaq in that playoff run lol
League average TS was 51.6% in 03-04.
that’s because all the teams doubled shaq but pistons played him one on one.
Yup. Correct.
This. Larry Brown’s strategy was to let Kobe shoot the Lakers out of the game. Which he did to perfection
Plus, only needing one guy on Shaq made a huge difference. Shaq still got his, but he wasn’t needing to be double teamed which gave them the opportunity to smother Kobe. Wallace deserves credit for not needing help to keep Shaq at just regular dominant by himself. Hakeem did the same thing against him.
But they didn’t smother Kobe. That’s a narrative Kobe stans have completely made up. Tayshaun played Kobe one on one. Sure, Kobe was funneled into help, like every top defense in NBA history. But Kobe wasn’t doubled as soon as he touched the ball or anything of the sort.
Shaq shot 16⁄21 in this game and 63% from the field overall in the series.
Kobe was single guarded on every perimeter shot
“He just couldn’t figure out Ben Wallace” meanwhile everyone around him shooting like Tony Allen
At the time the talk was how the Lakers (and Kobe) wasted a possible all time Shaq game. Shaq scored 36 on 16-21 shooting and should’ve had 50. Kobe was obviously terrible but when you look at the series stats every Laker besides Shaq and Rick Fox (who only took 7 total shots in the series) shot under 40% from the field. Detroit completely shut them down (besides Shaq of course).
They definitely slowed down Shaq too. During the 3 peat he averaged 36 points. You don’t just average 10 less points without being slowed down
You mean in the finals. He shot 63% from the field against the Pistons (his overall field goal percentage as a Laker was 57.5%).
Pistons held Shaq to 14 points which was his finals career low at the time
Detroit shut everyone down
Nor Shaq
He struggled but def was not the reason they lost. That lakers team was a bad fit overall, Malone got hurt. And Detroit was a much better team with unselfish play
He was the reason they lost. Shaq was feasting but Kobe couldn’t get past the hero ball.
Doesn’t mean he isn’t amazing or an all time great but his unwillingness to feed Shaq cost them.
Detroit chose to single-cover Shaquille O’Neal rather than double-team him. This cut off easy passes to open shooters and forced the Lakers to rely heavily on individual scoring.
Detroit was doubling Kobe all night and nobody else showed up, including Payton. And yes, Malone was hurt.
We can actually watch the games. Not sure what the point of lying is outside of just general Kobe hate.
If you can’t find a way to get the ball to your dominant center when your guard is double teamed that’s a coaching issue. So I’m ok saying Kobe/Phil get the blame…
But if you don’t think Kobe had the ego/confidence to keep shooting when he should be passing you don’t know Kobe. It’s part of what made him great. That doesn’t change the fact that Shaq was the matchup and he should have found a way to get Shaq more shots.
I mean at some point you have to credit Detroit’s defense. They shut the Lakers down. They doubled Kobe all series and actively disrupted the Lakers’ passing entry lines. Shaq and Kobe combined for 32 turnovers. Ben Wallace was fronting Shaq all series forcing turnovers.
Kobe shot 113 shots to Shaq’s 84 and the next highest player in the Lakers shot 36 fga.
That’s on Kobe and his shot selection. If you watch clip there are some shots Kobe is forced to take but there are plenty of REALLY bad shots he shouldn’t be taking.
The Pistons defense was good but Kobe is an all time player he could have found a way to get Shaq the ball more if he wanted to. He wanted to prove he was the guy. Chauncey Billups even said as much.
Kobe isn’t perfect and he’s allowed to have bad series, this one just so happened to be in the finals. It’s not hate, it doesn’t mean I don’t think Kobe is an all time great player, it’s just the fact of the matter.
You originally framed it like Kobe was the sole/primary reason they lost, now you’re backtracking so I’m fine with your concession.
I didn’t backtrack or conceed anything.
Kobe is the primary reason they lost. His shot selection and reluctance to feed Shaq cost them the series. He played right into the Pistons hands
The is an old debate and it’s easily proven to be a lie.
The team aside from Shaq and Kobe shot a combined 37% from the field, with the third highest scorer being derek fisher scoring 6ppg on 30% shooting, the idea that Kobe was the primary reason they lost is just bonkers. He outperformed everyone on the team aside from Shaq, and that was by design as Detroit single covered Shaq and forced Kobe to be the best defender, playmaker, perimeter scorer, and closer for the series. The Lakers got outcoached, it was a team failure, and Kobe was the one out there willing to attack when the team looked petrified. Kobe was alone out there, no spacing, and absolute dogs on defense. He and Shaq were the only reason they were even in the Finals to begin with.
Kobe was not alone out there. Shaq was by far the best player in the series.
And you’re last statement does not change the fact that Kobe had a bad finals and shot them out of it.
I’m only four shots in but those first 4 weren’t bad shots lol
I’m watching the all the 04 games I can find and I’m in the pistons / pacers series….. this one will be up soon 🥲
Kobe fans about to cry.
Eh, dude hasn’t played in 10 years, has been dead for 5.
You can’t stop the internet from being the internet. But Y’all have issues lol.
And will forever be remembered for that thing in Colorado, am i right?
Yeah I remember how amazed the world was he would fly to court and then to a game and ball out.
Y’all holding on to 20 year old memories like you peaked in high school or some shit lol
Yeah bro lets invalidate he violated someone. He also proven himself to be not a good human being to his teammates.
But he’s good in basketball so we all put that under the rug.
Aren’t all of his good moment also basically that old? And being about cool sports memories, they are much closer to high school-glory days memories than not forgetting he was charged with rape.
Nah seriously people want to think people are hurting so badly from posting clips… it’s basketball bro lol
Kobe had “issues”.
I have minor problems that I can fix (zero rapes)
Everyone has bad games, lots of them. It doesn’t mean the sub has issues because a player has bad games and they are posted.
Yall can’t let your hatred for Kobe go, yall gonna be talking about Kobe in 20 more years when yall grandparents.
Kobe isn’t hated, that’s just a fan delusion.
Every time you comment it makes you look pathetic
Oh no, a bunch of internet strangers are going to see my reddit avatar as pathetic 😭
Let me go cry myself in a corner and never log back on
Irony of this comment. You’re worried about people slandering a rapist but it’s “oh no internet strangers see me as pathetic”
That’s valid. I rarely step into any r/nba Kobe thread for the exact same reason.
I have the power to just scroll. And I’m gonna excercise that power now. Bye!
K
Do you talk to people in real life like this lol
Imagine defending a rapist
Lol huh. Literally not even close to what I said. Are you a bot or something
> That spiderman 1 movie is so good
No but I’m convinced you might be
Dude you’re so weird
What? He won 5 rings and only lost two finals series. He’s immortalized at a basketball GOAT. You need help.
If basketball GOAT means there are 5-7 GOATs, then I agree. If you think Kobe is a top-three player of all time, though, you are just simply wrong.
Kobe is easily a top 4-7 all time Laker.
They will not allow anyone to “defame” Kobe because they see kobe in themselves, a selfish, arrogant prick. Anyone sane would not rank kobe in top 7, let alone top 3.
However, Kobe’s culture influence is disproportional to his actual ability. If we rank players by influence, Kobe does have a case for top 3.
Why… it’s just a game.
Its halfway through the 3rd quarter and its 46-47 and they think scoring 20 makes you sorry. these fools never watched basketball before steph curry.
He missed some easy shots too, but the defense is pretty good. I hate to say it but I’m not even a Kobe fan but it’s refreshing to watch a player just try to shoot baskets and score and not try to fall into people like SGA/Harden. My how the NBA has fallen
Thanks to his beef with Shaq its the most selfish he’s ever played. Cost them a fighting chance in the series.
I think that was part of the Pistons plan, they doubled Kobe a lot and knew he was in his ball hog mode due to all the off court and locker room issues
They knew he would force some stupid shots and it worked
Yes it was absolutely their plan. They said as much. Played him like a fiddle unfortunately
Yup, it was Kobe’s peak but also his peak of being a selfish player with a huge ego, the drama going on just made it ripe for exploiting as a gameplan.
This video looks like it’s been smothered in Vaseline
Have so much more respect for both of these teams than any of the teams today. They played defense and made the game tough
90s and y2k basketball is the only reason we still watch this brave new league is garbage thanks adam silver
8-25 shooting that is Playoffs Luka shooting numbers right there
You should take a look at the playoff stats you might be surprised…
With a torn shoulder that required offseason surgery.
Highlights? At least put the title in right.
Bad game. All the great players have em. LeBron went 2-18 in the ECF in 2008. MJ had a 3-18 game in the ECF against the Kicks in 93.
MJ’s 3-18 wasn’t a bad game.
The difference is he had 11 assists, only 2 turnovers, 8 boards and played great defense.
And most importantly, he got to the basket, took the hard hits and got to the line and made 16⁄17 freethrows.
Perfect example of what to do when you can’t hit a shot.
I forever stand by Kobe selfishly shot the Lakers out of that series. Shaq started one of the games perfect from the field like 6⁄6 or 7⁄7 keeping the game close and Kobe just started throwing shots up. Richard Hamilton said in an interview years later Kobe played right into their strategy which was for him to go 1 on 5.
This series highlights how good 2005 Ginobili was during his short-lived peak.
Wabi-sabi
I dont think Jordan ever had a game where he forced shots like this. I mean you could put together a reel of his worst shots from all of his playoff game misses and you still wouldnt see anywhere this many poorly selected shots.
More just pointing out Jordan’s amazing shot selection than anything else, no other player comes close
Every Kobe fan will tell you this 25 was legit and when Steph scored 22 on 9 shots, he played bad
lots of forced contested shots
Still has more rings than Lebron and I’m not a Kobe guy
Robert Horry got more rings than both of em
Smooth brain response
kchucker bryant
ITT: /u/LakersAreForever glazing Kobe like he gets paid by the estate lmao
Tell em to send the check
Back then, it was hard to convince a casual fan that shooting 8-25 wasnt a good game..they just saw the 20 points .
Casual fans are dumb. Especially casual Lakers fans.
The only thing better than a dead rapist being dead is watching that rapist shit the bed doing the thing that allowed him to be a rapist in the first place.
Dude imagine if this series happened today?
The internet would be destroying Kobe
Not really. Did you not see Brunson fg% in the finals?
This.
At least Kobe played Defense.
Brunson is seen as some kind of hero but he also had 3 of the top 10 3 and D guys alongside him and a top 3 C.
Brunson has never had a player anywhere close to the level of Shaq
The Knicks won. That is the difference in how the Internet/media/fans would discuss the performance.
Yeah and Kobe had won 3 championships by this point
Maybe you’re new to the internet, but that would not have stopped them from blaming Kobe for this loss. They would have just given Shaq all of the credit for winning the other 3. Great players are never allowed to fail in this culture.
They already do give Shaq all the credit lol
The Knicks won.
If the Knicks were huge favorites going into the series, he shot poorly and the lost? He would absolutely get killed.
I saw him put up 45 points in a close out game
He was 7⁄25 in game 2 (worse than Kobe’s game lol)
12⁄31 in game 1
He turned up huge in games 4⁄5 though so it covers that.
Also, the standards people expect of Kobe in his 4th finals in 5 years with 3 hall of famers alongside him is obviously higher than a finals debutant with no hall of famers around him.
Malone was a corpse, GP was past his prime. Ben Wallace clamped Shaq. The rest of the pistons focused on Kobe.
Anyways I was rooting for the Knicks in finals this year because Brunson ball is basically Kobe ball. Hero ball. Go out and shoot and win the game. I fw that
I’m not here to debate, the pistons beat the shit out the Lakers, no excuses
Yeah there’s plenty of reasons. It was a poorly constructed team.
but ultimately when you don’t win people are gonna clown you for it, and when you win no one cares if you had an off game or two.
Not really, a player can never truly be destroyed after winning 3 straight finals, even as a 1b
Well, yeah. Just like it destroys every other all-star player that had a poor game in the playoffs.
What would have got him was the rape