Celtics Gift Kobe Bryant Piece Of Garden Parquet Before His Last Game In Boston

BOSTON — Kobe Bryant has fond memories of playing in TD Garden, and now, he has a piece of it to remember it by.

The Los Angeles Lakers star came to Boston for the last time in his career Wednesday night, so the Celtics gave Bryant a gift before he rides off into the sunset. And it appropriately was a piece of the Garden’s famous parquet floor.

Bryant’s lucky to have such an iconic souvenir, as he said before the game that the Garden will be one of the most important stops on his retirement tour.

“I’ll gaze up a lot, I’ll look at the banners a lot,” Bryant said. “Kind of scan the crowd a lot and try to soak it all in as much as possible. Its always cool when I come here. I always look up into the rafters and always kind of scan the crowd and always appreciate the sea of green. I’ll be doing that quite a bit tonight. … This building is a place that really helped push me to win those two championships. This place has a lot of memories.”