The “Doberman” you ask. Well this should explain it. We shall now call him… “DOBE!”
ESPN: The other two items, however, were true rarities, and Kobe Bryant’s shutting down of Jasikevicius was one of the biggest eye-openers, as Team USA handled Lithuania with relative ease in a 120-84 victory that wrapped up the Macau portion of its pre-Olympic tour.
“That’s what I do,” said Bryant, who gave himself a new nickname: “The Doberman.”
The best piece of defensive work was performed by Bryant, who was all over Jasikevicius the same way he was against Leandro Barbosa of Brazil last summer during the Tournament of the Americas. The box score listed just three turnovers for the former member of the Pacers and Warriors, but the count on press row was more like seven or eight.
This is the same Jasikevicius who burned the Americans four years ago in Athens by burying seven 3-pointers and scoring 28 points in an opening-round victory over the U.S. And although it has only been four years since then, so thorough was the job Bryant did on Jasikevicius, he made him look like a player 10 years past his prime.
“He had a great game against us a few years ago, and he was real brash about it, trash talking and things of that nature. So it’s my responsibility to bring it to him,” Bryant said. “He reminded me of it, so we sicced the Doberman on him.”
No word yet on whether Bryant will be assigned to guard the best player on each of those teams — 7-footers Andrei Kirilenko and Andrew Bogut. But there’s no doubting the fact that the Doberman is up to the challenge, and as Boozer said as he stepped into the service elevator leading to the team bus: “Kobe can stop anybody.”
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