5. 2010 NBA Finals – Game 7: Lakers vs. Celtics
"“I just got one more than Shaq. So you can take that to the bank.” [via Yahoo]"
– Kobe Bryant
I don’t think a lot of people remember too much about this game. Many forget how ugly it really was. They forget that the Lakers won a Game 7 while scoring only 83 points on 32.5 percent shooting. And they forget that Kobe had one of the worst shooting games of his career.
But most people remember that quote.
It’s such an on-brand Kobe quote, too. It showed that after all those years had passed, Kobe still deeply cared about how he measured up with Shaq. For as much as the two of them wanted to downplay it after the fact, that rivalry was still quite alive in 2010. I mean, how many other player feuds have their own Wikipedia page?
2010 also wiped the slate clean for Kobe against the Boston Celtics‘ big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen, getting his revenge after losing to them in 2008. It also gave Kobe two rings during the Big 3 era compared to their one ring – something that I’m sure meant a lot to him.
At that time it also gave Kobe one more than Tim Duncan, a player he battled against for over a decade. That would of course change in 2014 when Duncan got his 5th, but at the time, Kobe had made a strong case for the best player of the 2000s.
So this game makes the list not because it was the most memorable game ever, but because it meant so much to one of the NBA’s best players ever. One more than Shaq, one more than Duncan (for the time being), and revenge against the Celtics’ Big 3.