The Lakers will wear their Kobe Bryant-inspired Black Mamba jerseys during Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
The Lakers will enter Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Friday night with a chance to bring another championship to Los Angeles and honor the late Kobe Bryant.
The team plans to wear their Bryant-inspired Black Mamba jerseys for what could be a memorable night. The Lakers wore them in Game 2 and intended to don them again in a possible Game 7, but with a 3–1 series lead over the Heat, they changed the plan.
Star Anthony Davis said the Lakers are looking forward to hopefully winning Game 5 and honoring Bryant.
"If we come out and do what we're supposed to do, then we can remain undefeated," said Davis, per Lakers Daily's Ryan Ward. "We just think that for all the things that happened this season, with our team specifically and our organization, that to be able to close it out in the Black Mamba uniforms will just make it all worth it."
A win over the Heat would give the Lakers their first NBA title since 2010. Bryant won his fifth championship ring with Los Angeles that year.
"Obviously [Bryant's] legacy in the NBA and then just with the organization, period, is something special," Davis added. "For us to, like I said, close it out in his honor is something that we look forward to, something that [is] an insane amount of pressure for sure, but we don't want to lose, we don't want to let him down.
"Every time we lose in the jerseys, we feel like we've let him down, and we don't want to do that. We want to remain undefeated."
The Lakers are 4–0 in their Black Mamba jerseys this postseason, including a win during Game 2 of the Finals.
The team has honored Bryant since his death in January by wearing a patch on their uniforms with his "KB" initials.
On Jan. 26, Kobe, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant and seven other passengers were headed to a youth basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy when their helicopter went down in the hills of Calabasas, Calif. All nine people on the helicopter, including the pilot, died in the crash.