End of an Era: A Conversation With NBA Great Kobe Bryant

try to hit one of those things seriously because if you look at the shot, I'm sliding to the left so I'm off balance because my legs are tired so I had to do it. I pulled the tracking back so I had to backtrack a little bit for it to have a chance to come in, so inspiration comes from everywhere. You know, he didn't look good in that game for quite a while. What will your team be like? back and and you scored those 17 points in a row and you had a

great

fourth quarter and they got out of your way if that's the right term but you were exhausted, how did you do so well?

Because you know there is no tomorrow, you know it literally, literally. I mean, it's like you know everything you have and give, but now that I made the decision to do it, I feel comfortable overcoming the exhaustion, now it becomes a matter of execution, okay, make sure you have balance in your shot correctly. making sure you read the defense correctly, make sure you take your time, like going back to like the basics of the game, how to handle the screen roll, we're double teams coming from the right, all those little things that were It's not a championship , but on an individual level it was possibly just as exciting.

Yeah, I mean, this is what the fans came to see. You know, it was like you knew this was the time to say goodbye and you know I wanted to be able to say. Bye and I called my wife before the game and told her I feel like everyone wants to be sad, you know I'm not sad, hopefully we can make tonight some kind of celebration where she can give them something. where they're not thinking about the fact that this is my last game like they're just thinking about this is an amazing game to watch, you know? and luckily it worked out that way and how was the car ride home that night. with Vanessa and your kids, well you know Vanessa is fun, it's about time you played like you used to play and the kids are like, man, that was awesome, that was awesome, but those free throws were fun because, um, it was uh , you wanted 60. you knew where you were, it would be so disappointing that I missed that free throw, but when you compare it to the 81st game and the free throw I made there, I remember taking a free throw for the 81 G-point game and Looking and seeing all the fans standing and watching and then flipping that with this and St at the free throw line, all I saw was the back of the phones and I had to stop myself from smiling because I was like, damn, I'm old Like hell, like the last time this happened, it was just eyeballs and now it's like the back of phones and like it's crazy, it was like a sea of ​​phones when you were '81, you grew up in Philly in that Arena , you saw that picture all The time you walked into the Spectrum ofl with 100, yeah, Hershey Pennsylvania, that's what you thought when you had your 81.

I thought about it after I thought about it later and you know, I thought about you, you know, every time I was a child and I dreamed of scoring 100 points like I dream and I try to solve it in my brain this way, logically it can be done well because if you score 20 points in the first quarter, now you are on fire, now in the second quarter you have 20 because you got 20 in one quarter, you can score 20 in another, right, if you got 20 in First, you score 20 in Second, that's already a 40 point night, so now you're rolling, so at that point the momentum just it feeds on itself, so now you come out of the third quarter, you're off to a good start, you might have 10 quick points, suddenly you're sitting at 50 with a lot of game ahead of you and that's how I always processed that and figured it out.

To believe this is actually possible when you look back on that game, do you think you should have had more? Like when you look back on your championships, do you think more about the games you won and the titles you won or the pairing you got? I do both, I do a balance of both, you know, I enjoy it, but I also look at things that I could have done differently or better, because that's how you learn, you have to be able to look at things. and not just like the last game was something that I could watch highlights just for pure entertainment, you know, and just make little critiques, but n Let It Go, what are you going to do now?

Well, back then it was like you couldn't. I have to watch those performances and analyze every detail to learn from Kobe. Congratulations, it has been a wonderful race. It has been an honor for me to have been able to cover you. I did the first interview you did. You allowed me to do the last interview in your The Laker uniform has been a privilege and thank you for everything you have given, thank you friend, I appreciate it.