Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are always going to get into it. That’s a given on any night Inside the NBA is on your television.
Just look at the history between them. It’s hilarious most of the time. Other times you’re just like “wow, that was kind of disrespectful.” But you laugh anyway because you know it’s not that serious between these two.
We had one of those disrespectful moments on Wednesday night when the two of them were arguing about the Celtics and the Heat. It was sort of hilarious because, honestly, both of them had points and it probably didn’t need to get this heated or this personal. But, of course, it did.
It was about who on the Celtics could potentially stop Jimmy Butler from dropping 41 points on them again.
Barkley said Marcus Smart will be back in the lineup, so it’s likely the Celtics will put him on Butler and he won’t have that easy of a time scoring. Which, ya know, totally reasonable take.
Shaq would have none of it, though. He argued Jimmy Butler is a great player and great players do not get locked up by anyone including the Defensive Player of the Year.
You can understand where he’s coming from with that. But, uh, things just got out of hand.
"It's harder to score on the Defensive Player of the Year fool!"
This Shaq-Chuck debate on Jimmy Butler vs. Marcus Smart got HEATED 🍿 pic.twitter.com/b25N7Zzq2l
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 19, 2022
“Shaq: You said last week, don’t be bragging that you a great player if somebody can shut you down. Marcus Smart ain’t shutting Jimmy Butler down. If Jimmy Butler wants to get 40, he’s going to get 40. Period.
Barkley: This is a totally different animal. It’s harder to score on the Defensive Player of the year, fool.
Shaq: No it’s not…You’d better look at my Finals against Dikembe Mutombo…Jimmy Butler is a great player. If he wants 40, he can get 40. I don’t want to hear that Defensive Player of the Year stuff.”
They kept going and going and going and, right on cue, Shaq basically told Barkley he was never as good at basketball as him.
“Shaq: When you’re a great player, you get greater. You never got greater at this point in your career. I did. I know what I’m talking about.
Barkley: You were riding on Dwyane [Wade] and Kobe [Bryant]’s coattails.”
Y’all. This devolved into absolute chaos. And I won’t lie — I loved every minute of it. From the Dikembe Mutombo shot that he’s probably somewhere confused about why he was brought into it to the Kobe and Dwyane Wade reference. It was phenomenal theater.
It wasn’t just me. Everyone else loved it, too.
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