Lakers: Gordon Hayward Talks About Last Game Against Kobe Bryant

Gordon Hayward was one of the players tasked with guarding Kobe Bryant during his last game with the Los Angeles Lakers and even he was in awe of the performance

Kobe Bryant may have played his final game for the Lakers in mid-April but tales from that storied night are still taking the news by storm.

Most recently, Utah Jazz small forward, Gordon Hayward, took to his personal website GordonHayward20.life in order to take a look back at his season overall including a special section at the end dedicated entirely to Kobe Bryant’s last game.

In the candid piece Hayward details how even though the Jazz knew that they weren’t going to make the Playoffs, that they were still trying to win the game. Further, that the game was different than any he had ever played before.

"There were probably at least 50 cameras around him. And when the game started, the atmosphere was different from anything I’ve ever experienced. Everyone in the arena was excited whenever he touched the ball. And every time Kobe got it, they wanted him to shoot it, and they were booing us for even trying to defend him."

More over,

"We were up double digits for most of the second half, and we led by 10 with about three minutes to go. So when Kobe started hitting shots and the game started to get close, a lot of us were in shock.It was like being a part of a showcase, or being in a video game. There wasn’t really much normality about it. A guy scored 60 points and took 50 shots. There was something different as far as his aggressiveness. . ."

Despite being constantly underrated, Hayward is a formidable defender, so to hear him say things like it was “harder to defend than you might think” and that, “There comes a point where he is in the zone, and there’s almost nothing you can do” because well, “he’s Kobe Bryant” only adds to the legend of Kobe’s epic last game.

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Hayward went as far as saying that he’d never want to have to defend something like that again.

"When he starts to hit shots and the crowd starts to get going, you’re just trying to do what you can to stop him. . . It’s something I don’t ever want to have to defend again—a situation where everybody on the other team is working to get shots for one guy"

It will be interesting to see who inherits the 20+ shots a game that Kobe Bryant was responsible for this last season but with Luke Walton at the helm, it’s likely that they’re dished out accordingly rather than to one guy and rightly so.

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You can read Hayward’s whole piece here.