Kobe Bryant Defense Quotations

At the end of 2003, my game was complete. Shooting, defense, using the dribble, transition, midrange stuff was all there. Then it was about fine-tuning and trying to improve in each area.

From the start of the series we've been playing extremely well, moving the ball, reading the defense well. It's been a progress.

He had an incredible game. Believe it or not, he can do this on a consistent basis and the challenge he gets is judging how to pick the defense we are going to have to penetrate.

I was aggressive. I saw how they played defense and decided to come at them.

I think their experience kicked in and overwhelmed us a bit tonight, ... We kept fighting back and did some great things with our execution. Our inexperience on defense hurt us, as they were spreading the floor extremely well and getting good looks at the basket.

It gives us confidence. It shows that our play is not a fluke. We move the ball consistently and play defense consistently. This bodes well for our confidence.

Weird things happen in the NBA, and tonight was one of them. We had a chance to win the game and just didn't close it out. They made some big shots down the stretch and came away with the victory. Even though (Odom) made a mistake, as a team, defense down the stretch cost us the ballgame.

Sacramento has added a player in the mix that is everything that they weren't when we played them in the playoffs. The guy plays defense first, and now Sacramento has become much more aggressive on defense.

He thinks defense first, he's committed to playing defense for all 48 minutes.

They got hot in the third quarter. They made a lot of big plays when they missed, and on defense they were scrapping and hustling.

That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.