Considered one of the best away defensemen in history, and the last fullback to be voted Defender of the Year, Gary Payton has had a lot of legends in his career, starting with Michael Jordan, especially during the 1996 finals where he gave him a hard time. It was one of the subjects of The Last Dance, and MJ had a good laugh when he was told that the leader of the Sonics considered him to be in big trouble.
Guest of House of Highlights, Gary Payton returned to the secrets of his defense against MJ
“When you don’t let him receive the ball where he likes, he has to work harder and expend more energy, and when he expends more energy, on the other side of the pitch when he is defending on me, I put even more energy. Phil Jackson realized it and he said, ‘This is too much, let Pippen defend on him.’ He was taller and I couldn’t play the post every time against him. So you can still see me in front of Jordan, I put him to work, and the refs let us play. You know, a great basketball player like him, he’s going to keep fighting, that’s what I loved about him, and I keep fighting too, and that made it harder for him and he got tired. ” Payton
Here are some pictures of their duel during Game 4
Payton also rubbed shoulders with LeBron James at the end of his career. When he was at the Lakers he had notably prevented a game winner from the young Cavalier.
“We must not let him do what he wants. You always have to stay active in front of him. That’s what I was doing, being active. He must be pushed around. (describes the action video below) Suddenly he’s dribbling, and I’m still in front of him, and I’m kicking the ball. He overflows me, but when he rises I manage to touch the ball and that prevents him from doing what he wanted. He tried to shoot anyway, but he did an air ball. ” Payton
The images are on the second video
By his admission, it was John Stockton who posed the most concern at the Glove.
“John Stockton had the ball 95% of the time. It was necessary to defend on him on all the ground. Then when you tried to post it, it would pull away and try to take the ball from you. He was always looking to play pick & roll. Then if he shot 10 times, he put in 8. He’s the kind of guy, you were looking at the scoreboard and he was 26 points, 15 assists, 6 rebounds and 4-5 steals, and that’s hard to beat a guy like that every night, it’s hard to defend on him. Then he only played 34 minutes per game. When you have such a production in 34 minutes, you’re pretty darn hard to defend. ” Payton
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