Even the Referee Can’t Stop Kobe Bryant

Everyone in the league would agree that Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers is probably one of the hardest guys to defend. He just has too many offensive weapons to think you can stop him. There have been many players come through this league that claimed to be “Kobe Stoppers” or at least say they could control his output. Over and over again those making such claims have failed, and often to the detriment of their image. Kobe is the only one who can stop Kobe. When he’s mentally focused and on top of his game, forget it. Just duck and run.

But in last night’s series clinching win for Los Angeles against the Utah Jazz, another person thought they could stop Kobe from scoring. Surprisingly it wasn’t a Utah Jazz player, in fact it wasn’t a player at all! As you will see in the following video the ref in last night’s game tripped Kobe as he was running up the sidelines on a fast break. Kobe still managed to pick himself up, dart up the floor, and score a layup, all before most of the defenders were able to catch up to play some ‘D’.

Silly Ref…Kobe is unstoppable, didn’t you get the memo?

(H/T to NBA.com for sending us the video, double click video to watch in full screen)