As a coach, Tyronn Lue has an NBA title, an NBA All-Star Game appearance and the 17th-highest regular-season winning percentage of all time. But of course, his signature moment came as a player. And it was not by choice.

On June 6, 2001, in overtime of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Allen Iverson crossed him up and made a jumper in Lue's face. He then maneuvered over Lue in an iconic move known as "The Stepover."

"I remember him being a pest that night," Iverson says during a recent Thuzio event in Philadelphia. "He told me later I was his idol, so everybody on his team -- Shaq, Kobe -- they were teasing him about it. 'You gonna let A.I. come out here and bust your ass?'

"In his mind, 'I got to prove to my squad that's not the case even though I grew up idolizing this guy.' It's similar to how I felt about Jordan."

Lue started the game on the bench with Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant manning the Lakers' backcourt. Phil Jackson deployed Lue for the first time with 5:23 left in the third quarter and the Sixers leading 72-58. He never sat again. Iverson, who scored 48 points -- 30 in the first half -- actually missed seven of his next eight field-goal attempts after Lue's arrival.

"He came out and he was scrappy," Iverson says with a laugh. "I wouldn't have went cold if it wasn't for a whole lot of holding that he was doing. You look at the tape, I wouldn't have went cold if it wasn't a hold. The whole tape, you look at it, he was grabbing on me and the referee was just letting him do it and it was frustrating the hell out of me."

Even when executing "The Stepover," he notes Lue can be seen holding his left hand before Iverson breaks free.


"The Stepover" capped off a 9-0 run by the Sixers, featuring seven points by Iverson. As Doug Collins noted on the NBC TV broadcast, Iverson had "looked dead in the water" before that run. Lue did his part until he couldn't any longer.

The Sixers won the game, 107-101. It was the only game the Lakers lost that postseason and the only NBA Finals game Iverson ever won.

As for the act of stepping over Lue, why'd Iverson do it?

"People tell me, when I'm doing a little commercial shoot or something like that, 'Do The Stepover again.' I'm like, 'I don't know how I did it when I did it.' It was just a reaction I didn't know it when I did it. It was basically like me saying, 'Yeah, mother f***er. But I couldn't duplicate it again for nothing."

NBC Sports Philadelphia's Marc Zumoff hosted Iverson's Thuzio conversation.

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