Kobe Bryant Tonight Quotations

I was just determined. I was just locked in, tuned into what was going on out there. These points tonight mattered. We needed them. The points I put in the basket were instrumental. It means a lot more.

I was so frustrated with our last loss I said I'll fix it. Tonight I just wanted to attack and send a message. The reason I scored 62 points was because I wanted to win so bad. I just felt that I could continually attack these guys. It's a great feeling that I could do it here in front of our fans and give them an early Christmas present.

This was a must win for us. We played well the entire trip, but it's just that we weren't able to close things out. Tonight was a win that we desperately needed.

Weird things happen in the NBA, and tonight was one of them. We had a chance to win the game and just didn't close it out. They made some big shots down the stretch and came away with the victory. Even though (Odom) made a mistake, as a team, defense down the stretch cost us the ballgame.

We played hard tonight. Even the last two games that we lost on the road, we played hard. We just did not come through down the stretch of the game. Tonight was no different. We are a physical team and we got after them a little bit. All around, it was a good victory.

It makes me very proud of him. I look at all these guys here like little brothers. And he is out there in practice and working hard. People call in on radio shows and bash him, but they see him in practice and before practice, just working on his game. His improvement tonight just didn't come out of nowhere.

We didn't execute. Tonight they stepped up their pressure.

He's been doing the defensive part all year long. Sometimes, the people want more. Tonight he gave them more.

I've been double-teamed like I was tonight before, so that's nothing we haven't seen. But I'm beginning to think that this is the formula for playing us, and other guys are just going to have to step up and make their shots.