Paul Pierce says Kobe's volume shooting is part of 'basketball serial killer' mentality

Kobe Bryant has always been an unapologetic gunslinger, but he's never faced nearly as much scrutiny for his shot selection as he has this season, in which he's leading the league in field-goal attempts per game despite shooting just 37.5 percent. 

But Washington Wizards small forward Paul Pierce, one of the few remaining NBAers from Bryant's generation, says that those shooting tendencies are very much by design. In a piece Pierce penned last week for the ever-expanding, athlete-run editorial site The Players' Tribune, he called Bryant one of the five toughest players he's every had to guard, pointing to Bryant's relentless shooting as the very reason why:

Kobe has the mentality of a basketball serial killer. He’s going to come at you every single way possible and he’s not going to let up. His mentality - his killer instinct - is what separates him from the other guys on this list, because once Kobe knows he has you, he’s going to keep attacking you. He’ll throw you down, beat you up and even when you’re knocked out, he’ll keep hitting you.

One of the toughest games I remember playing against Kobe happened in Boston. I think he made seven or eight shots in a row on me. So we come into the huddle during a timeout and Coach is looking at me with a face that I knew meant he wanted me to switch off of Kobe. And the rest of the guys on the team could see what was happening and they were looking at me too. Finally they bring up that maybe we should switch and put a different guy on him, and I yelled, “Hell no! I’m going to guard him! I got this! 

He ended up missing the last nine shots of that game with me on him, and we won. But the stat sheet is still vivid in my mind. Kobe took 47 shots. Forty-seven. No one has ever taken 47 shots on me. Most games a team will get up 81 to 89 shots. 

What you have to understand about Kobe’s game is that by taking that many shots, he’s meticulously wearing down the defender until he breaks them. He’s made a career out of making guys lose confidence in their defense and then continuing to attack them. He’s won five rings doing that.

Bryant, now in his 19th NBA season, and Pierce, in his 17th, have battled twice in the NBA Finals. Pierce's Boston Celtics won in 2008 and Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers avenged their loss in 2010.