Reggie Miller Recalls Infamous Kobe Bryant Brawl: 'That's All I Wanted'

Reggie Miller remembered his iconic (and infamous) fight with Kobe Bryant 23 years later.

Pacers icon Miller sat down with ALL THE SMOKE to offer his perspective on the brawl, starting with his time mentoring Bryant early in his career and hearing that he was a fan of Michael Jordan. "I would call Kobe and talk to Kobe all the time...He was a true student. He was studying all of us," Miller recalled. "There was a history between Kobe and I."

Miller then remembers doing a shoot with Bryant and the cast of MTV's The Real World when he heard from his longtime business manager, Gail D'Agostino, that Bryant wanted to play him one-on-one. Miller refused, but offered to teach him some things.

"So we're on the court, he's like, 'Teach me that step back.'" Miller recalls, remembering Bryant intensely dissecting his moves.

"Fast forward to the Finals, Shaq goes down game four. Shaq fouls out. We're thinking we about ready to tie this thing up. They had won the first two in Staples, we won game three about ready to tie this thing up. Damn Kobe Bryant turned into the reincarnation of MJ."

"And not only did he turn into the reincarnation of MJ, that same shit that I was teaching him in that those step backs, he's hitting it on me," Miller continues, noting that Bryant "was prepping for this moment three years ago."

Miller then fast-forwards to another year, emphasizing the unwritten rule in basketball to "dribble it out" when there are only a few seconds left on the clock. With Bryant in possession of the ball, Miller noticed that he wanted to shoot.

"I'm like 'Yeah, I'm sure you are going to shoot it, Kobe, because that's what you do. You're just out here to try to get stats.' That's what I'm telling him," Miller says.

Miller continued, "We start to have words and I was like, 'If he comes to me, it's on.' And he took one step to me and I body checked him right here. I was like, 'That's all I wanted.'"

He looks back on the fight fondly, however, comparing it to his famous rivalry with Jordan (which also led to a fight). "For me to have beef with those two dudes, the two best shooting guards our game has ever seen? I'll take it as a form of respect that they both — I can only speak for myself — I hope they respected my game. I respected theirs."

You can watch the complete interview below.