SAN ANTONIO — Rivalries take sports to another level.
They’re hot and they’re loud and they’re personal, filled with all due respect and the familiarity that breeds contempt.
Nothing in the NBA pantheon can touch Celtics-Lakers. One side has 17 championships, the other 16. They have met a dozen times in The Finals.
Russell in his last season with Boston beating Wilt in his first season in L.A. Bird vs. Magic all through the 1980s.
Other rivalries have flared up over the years — Bulls-Pistons, Knicks-Heat, Warriors-Clippers.
But for the better part of the past two decades, the best rivalry in the game has been Lakers-Spurs. Kobe Bryant vs. Tim Duncan.
It is the quintessential rivalry, made of both form and function.
The Lakers have always been the NBA’s glamor team with their Hollywood trappings and flamboyant solo artists. The Spurs are the small-market band that has always had trouble attracting a TV audience outside the city limits.
Bryant arrived as precocious teenager to L.A. in 1996, grabbing the league by its lapels and forcing everyone to sit up and take notice, all singular talent and sharp edges. Duncan was drafted and arrived in San Antonio a year later, a taciturn 22 year old with four years of collegiate experience and a mature, polished game.
They have won 10 championships between them, a fitting five apiece. They have met seven times in playoffs (Lakers 4-3), with the winner going to The Finals each time. Four times the winner of their series went on to claim the championship.
There has been a running debate about which of them has led the true dynasty of their generation. Kobe’s Lakers with their “three-peat” from 2000 to 2002, then back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010? Or Tim’s Spurs with their five championships stretched out over an astounding 15 years from 1999 to 2014?
There was Duncan hammering down 37 points and grabbing 16 rebounds in the elimination Game 6 of the 2003 West finals to end the Lakers’ reign as three-time champs. There were Kobe’s Lakers returning with Derek Fisher’s 0.4 second, running, fading jumper in Game 5 of the 2004 West semifinals that flipped the table back on the reigning champion Spurs.
So it is that the final season of the matchup begins tonight (9:30 ET, ESPN) as the Kobe Farewell Tour touches down at the AT&T Center with the rivalry having melted like a popsicle left outside on a hot sidewalk.
The Spurs come with an 18-5 record that trails only the unbeaten defending champion Warriors, while the Lakers drag in a 3-19 scar that is worst in the Western Conference and on pace as a historic low in franchise history.
When word came from Kobe on Nov. 30 that this would be his final season, there was reflection from the Spurs.
“Many memories,” Duncan said. “We’ve been playing against each other for a long time.”
“Beyond his ability, he’s one of those guys that brought it every night,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. “He wanted to destroy the opponent every night. My Kobe memories were when he beat us somehow or another. Not very fun.”
As a 14-time All-Star, Bryant has rung up 23 different 30-point games against the Spurs in his career. His 45-point explosion in the 2001 playoffs remains a franchise postseason record for a Spurs opponent.
“I remember many of those games,” said guard Manu Ginobili, who joined the Spurs and the rivalry in 2002. “There were moments there was not much you can do. Just make him take the most uncomfortable shot you could, and even with that there was a good chance it was going in. I have big respect for him.”
That much hasn’t changed a whit. What is different as the Kobe farewell tour touches down in the Alamo City is the way Bryant and Duncan have approached the twilight of their Hall of Fame careers.
Duncan has allowed Popovich to carefully ration his minutes over the past six seasons to the point where he now plays just 27 per game and is averaging single digit scoring (9.6 points) for the first time in his career. He defers. He assimilates.
He allows Kawhi Leonard to blossom and newcomer LaMarcus Aldridge to try to find a comfort zone. Thus the Spurs are title contenders.
Bryant, coming off a torn Achilles tendon and a fractured knee in the past two seasons, is doggedly playing the second-most minutes on his team and leading the Lakers in shots taken (17.5) by a wide margin while making a team low 30.9 percent. The Lakers look to the draft lottery for salvation.
The rivalry of their time now is in the memories.
Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
