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Kobe Bryant saw his fair share of cheap shots, with this being the most famous by Jalen Rose in the finals. But nothing compares to the sneakiest and dirtiest defender in NBA history. Bruce Bowen.
Bowen blatantly tried to injure Kobe every single time that he had a chance during their 2002 playoff matchup. He even went as far trying to crush Bryant’s hand.
You see, with his dirty play Bruce injured countless NBA stars throughout his career.
He went after Vince Carter multiple times. This is even before his San Antonio days in 2000, leaving Carter injured on the floor.
Then, the exact same thing, a few years later. This is almost like a replay. Same spot, same move, Vince is injured again.
And when he tried one more time the next season, Carter finally had enough and stormed at him.
But that was always the case with Bowen. He was so sneaky with it, and the rules didn’t protect the shooter back then so the refs didn’t see it.
In this game he first goes under Michael Finley on the jumper, but then on the replay we see that right after, he also gives him a nasty shot to the chest. And since this was a no call, Finley is understandably furious and retaliates. But he does it right in front of the refs, and gets an immediate ejection. Don Nelson cannot believe what just happened to his guy, and is irate. He as well gets promptly ejected. And Bowen… he stayed on the floor and calmly knocked down the technical foul shots.
Similar thing happened when the Spurs played New York in 2006. Steve Francis goes up for a jumper and Bruce undercuts him, injuring yet another star player. Then, just a few days later he attempted the same with Jamal Crawford, and although he was fortunately unsuccessful, Isaiah Thomas wanted to stand up for his players getting into it with Bowen and the Spurs.
After the game he said:
When I was playing, I would’ve beat the [bleep] out of someone if they did that… It’s [bleeping] murder.
All of these are horrible but nowhere near his greatest hits. Watch what he does to Stoudemire coming from the side with the sole intention of stepping on Amare’s foot and potentially injuring him. This display of malicious intent is insane. And, despite having replays and multiple angles of this, absolutely nobody notices it, and the game just moves on.
That series Bowen went deep into his bag, and also hurt Steve Nash by straight up kicking him in the groin. Although this was clearly unnecessary and definitely not a basketball move, it was only called an offensive foul.
And watch how sneaky but how dangerous this is. Amare goes up for the dunk and Bruce extends his leg to step on his Achilles. We’re talking about going for the most dangerous type of injury for a basketball player being the achilles tendon.
This could have easily been catastrophic for Stoudemire and the Suns. But I guess that was the plan all along.
If you ask him however, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In the 2002 playoffs against the Lakers, Bowen really went after Kobe, trying to injure him almost on every single contest.
On jumpshots, Bowen was constantly putting his foot under Bryant’s hoping to get him on the landing.
I’m still shocked how the refs wouldn’t call it. Some of these are extremely obvious, and definitely not a basketball play that’s within the defensive movement.
Look at this, putting the leg this far out is completely ridiculous.
But somehow he got away with it throughout the entire series, doing it in every single of those five games.
And watch what happens here as Kobe goes in transition but gets tripped and falls. Watch what Bowen does after the whistle. Goes over there for now reason, jumps over Bryant and stomps on his hand.
The intent, and the way he makes this seem incidental is absolutely disgusting.
Bruce even managed to hurt Kobe in one game. With this nasty leg kick right in the knee, which stung him. Bryant hobbled and grimaced for a bit before having to leave the game.
He was probably the most high profile victim, but as you saw, countless other players suffered from these sneaky and dirty plays by arguably the dirtiest guy in NBA history. Bruce Bowen.
That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.