Kobe Bryant’s greatest NBA Finals moment: Celebrating 25th anniversary of Lakers’ Game 4 win over Pacers

Kobe Bryant had a slew of memorable moments during his 20-year NBA career, from his historic All-Star Game debut in 1998 to his 81-point outburst in 2006 to his unforgettable 60-point effort in his final game. Those are just a few of the moments that made Bryant one of the best players the NBA has ever seen. 

Another memorable Kobe highlight was his lob to Shaquille O’Neal, which sealed the Lakers’ dramatic, come-from-behind win over the rival Trailblazers in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals. While that play has rightfully gone down in NBA lore, it is not O’Neal’s favorite moment in his former teammate’s career. 

“My favorite Kobe moment is in the Finals in Indiana,” O’Neal once told Bryant during a one-on-one interview between the two former Lakers stars. “I foul out, I’m like, ‘Damn, I’ll let the team down again.’ You put your hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, big fella. I got it.’ You took over.” 

O’Neal was alluding to Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals, which occurred on Wednesday, June 14. The Lakers, who had advanced to the Finals for the first time since 1991, entered the game with a 2-1 series lead over the Pacers, a hardened, veteran-laden group led by future Hall of Famer Reggie Miller. 

Los Angeles dominated Game 1 behind O’Neal’s herculean effort, which included 43 points and 19 rebounds. Game 2 was more competitive, but the Lakers still came out on the winning side, as O’Neal had another monster night with 40 points and 24 boards. 

The series became much more competitive when things moved to Indiana. In Game 3, the Pacers recorded a 100-91 win (Indiana’s first-ever NBA Finals victory) behind a combined 54 points from Miller and fellow guard Jalen Rose. Another contributing factor to the Pacers’ win was the absence of Bryant, who didn’t dress after he suffered an ankle sprain in Game 2. 

While Bryant was back in the lineup for Game 4, the Lakers once again got everything they could handle from the Pacers, who took a three-point lead into the intermission after leading throughout the first half. Los Angeles finally took its first lead on a 3-pointer from veteran sharpshooter Glen Rice with 8:03 left in the third quarter.  

The lead continued to switch hands throughout the fourth quarter, with both teams’ stars trading proverbial body shots. The Lakers, after being unable to pull away from the Pacers throughout the game’s first 47 minutes, appeared to be on the verge of a 3-1 series lead after taking a 104-101 lead with 44 seconds left. But two missed free throws (one by O’Neal and another by veteran Robert Horry) kept it a one-possession game. 

Indiana made Los Angeles pay for their poor free-throw shooting when Sam Perkins (whose game-winning 3-pointer in Game 1 of the Finals nine years earlier — as a member of the Lakers — dealt Michael Jordan his first defeat in an NBA Finals game) drained a 3-pointer that tied the score with 35 seconds left. The game ultimately went to overtime after O’Neal’s last-second skyhook shot was just off the mark. 

At the start of overtime, Horry made up for his missed free throw at the end of regulation by making consecutive buckets to give the visitors a four-point lead. After a Pacers basket, Bryant responded by hitting a tough midrange shot that occurred after he sliced through both Miller and fellow Pacers guard Mark Jackson at the top of the key. 

The Pacers, however, refused to go away. Miller responded moments later by hitting a jaw-dropping three-pointer just as the shot clock was about to expire. Indiana then received an even bigger momentum boost when O’Neal fouled out of the game after picking up his sixth foul with 2:33 to go and the Lakers clinging to a three-point lead. 

At this point, just about everyone assumed the Lakers would continue to fight but ultimately fall to the Pacers, thus evening the series at two games apiece. While they did display impressive resilience during their Game 7 win over Portland in the previous series, the Lakers had still not done enough to rid themselves of the label of being a team that far too often wilted under the pressure. 

Against the Kings in the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers took a 2-0 series lead before they were dragged to a fifth game (back then, the first round was a best-of-five series). A series later, the Lakers were mauled by the Suns in Game 4 after taking a 3-0 series lead. And in their Conference Finals matchup with Portland, Los Angeles nearly gave the series away after winning three of the first four games. 

All of this, coupled with the Lakers’ penchant for getting swept out of the playoffs in recent years, created a narrative that, while talented, Los Angeles’ roster lacked the championship DNA necessary to win it all. That changed, however, during the final three minutes of Game 4. In the process, Bryant proved that he was not merely a talented sidekick; he was a star in his own right who needed to be treated as such. 

After play resumed, Indiana immediately went after O’Neal’s replacement, 36-year-old John Salley, who was trying to become the first player to win rings with three different teams. But after Pacers center Rik Smits hit a little hook over Salley (making it a one-point game), Bryant responded by shaking Miller and drilling a long jumper that was just inside the 3-point line. 

As he ran back down the floor, Bryant grinned while pressing his hands down in a gesture that appeared to be a message to his teammates that, despite O’Neal’s absence, the Lakers were just fine. It was reminiscent of Jordan’s famous shrug gesture in Game 1 of the 1992 Finals. 

After Smits bested Salley again, the Lakers again needed Bryant to deliver. Bryant did just that, hitting another long jumper — this time over Jackson — to give the Lakers a 116-113 lead with 1:20 left. The basket was Bryant’s third of the overtime session, but he wasn’t done yet. 

Still up by three with under 40 seconds left, Miller passed on his possible game-tying 3-point look and instead drove to the basket. When his lane to the basket closed, Miller dished to Smits, whose shot was emphatically smacked out of play by Bryant, who came in from behind to make the block. The Pacers eventually scored on the possession, but Bryant’s block was still critical as it took Indiana nearly 20 seconds to get those points back. 

After Smits made a pair of free throws, Los Angeles took possession with 28.1 seconds left. Up by one, Lakers guard Brian Shaw took the game clock down to 12 seconds before he passed it off to Salley, who gave it right back to Shaw, who then darted to his right before attempting a one-handed shot. 

Shaw’s shot was off the mark, but Bryant came seemingly out of nowhere to grab the rebound before tipping the ball off the backboard and into the net to give the Lakers a 120-117 lead with 5.9 seconds left. Los Angeles officially prevailed after Miller misfired on his game-tying 3-point attempt as time expired. 

Bryant, bad ankle and all, submitted a stat line of 28 points (on 14 of 27 shooting), five assists, four rebounds, two blocked shots and a steal. He scored eight points on 4 of 5 shooting during the overtime period. 

“Always knew you were a bad cat,” O’Neal told Bryant years later, “but that moment right there … you had no fear.” 

“I knew how much it meant to you,” Bryant replied. “As brothers, you don’t let your brothers down. It wasn’t my time yet. This championship was yours, because you had worked hard to get us to this point. Your whole career in Orlando and all the disappointments and here you are, and it’s my responsibility to pick that up.” 

Bryant put the Lakers on his shoulders in Game 4, but O’Neal literally lifted his teammate off of his feet and into his arms after the Lakers defeated the Pacers in Game 6 to clinch their first of three consecutive NBA titles. 

O’Neal was the well-deserving recipient of the NBA Finals MVP award, but Bryant’s contributions to the Lakers’ first title in 12 years were significant as well. Fittingly, Bryant’s success in the series was a byproduct of something he did away from the cameras the previous summer when he ran into Miller while filming a show on UCLA’s campus. 

“I said to myself, ‘OK, they got a really good team. We might see these guys [in the Finals],'” Bryant recalled. “And I said, ‘Let’s play one-on-one.’ And we played one-on-one, and I proceeded to really measure him and see what he liked to do defensively, see where he moved, see where he was weak at, what I could exploit. 

“And so when what happened in the Finals, when we were here, I knew what I had. I knew what I could take. I knew what he would give me. And it just a matter of just measuring and going to work. So it was a thought out attack for him.” 

Bryant’s performance at the end of Game 4 was a culmination of years of hard work. It was also a full-circle moment for the then-21-year-old star, who two years earlier had shot four airballs in the final minutes of the Lakers’ season-ending loss to the Jazz in the Western Conference finals. As he walked off the court that night, Bryant was consoled by O’Neal, who told him that one day, opposing teams would fear him when it got down to crunch time. O’Neal’s words came to fruition that night in Indiana.