Did you know?

That Kobe Bryant sent Derek Fisher a series of encouraging text messages last year when he heard about Fisher's youngest daughter Tatum being diagnosed with eye cancer.

"I just said, 'Go at them,' '' Bryant said in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune last year. " 'Just go out there and go at them and do what you do best.' I'm sure he got that and understood exactly where I was coming from because we're cut from the same cloth."

"It made us all stop, just completely stop,'' Bryant said. "It was very difficult at first. But he gave us the good news the following day about the surgery being successful and that he was going to be able to be there [for the game]."