It’s no secret that injuries hampered Bryant in the back half of his career and he was a shell of himself in his 20th and final season. In true Kobe fashion though, he turned back the clock in his final game and scored 60 points to lead the Lakers to a comeback victory over the Utah Jazz as the basketball world watched on in awe.
Even Bryant’s teammates couldn’t believe what they were seeing as a number of Lakers players at the time were super young and weren’t around to see the shooting guard at the peak of his powers.
Larry Nance Jr. was one of those young players, and he recently took to social media to express how special that night was for him and his career:
Being on the floor with Bryant during that performance must have been surreal for Nance, who was just a rookie at the time. It’s easy to become a fan when watching Kobe get into that zone but Nance and the other Lakers players had to stay locked in, which they did to earn a comeback victory in what was a special night
Larry Nance Jr. previously spoke about how playing with Kobe Bryant on the Lakers helped him gain confidence as the legend encouraged him to dunk everything.
“That was the first thing he told me. It was funny, we were playing the Hawks and I’m an athletic dude, I came in athletic. I knew I was athletic, but it’s the NBA, guys are bigger, faster, strong and more athletic. So I tried to like finish around Al Horford one time and missed. Tried to finish around Paul Mills one time and missed. We came to the timeout and he just grabbed my jersey and was like ‘Hey! Hey, MF! I’ve seen you in practice. Dunk everything! I don’t care who’s there, they can’t touch you. Dunk everything!
So it’s funny, one of the very next possessions, I caught it in the post, ripped middle and just boom! Right on top of them both. And that just spurred my career forward. It was a really cool moment because like, I don’t know why I needed to be told that you could do the same thing you did in college here. But I don’t know, him having belief in me was all I needed to just really go do it.”
