TNT’s Inside the NBA crew were back in action on Thursday night for the first time since the beginning of the New Year, and the crew of Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal wasted no time making headlines for their antics.
Specifically, Barkley and Shaq started their NBA Tip-Off edition of the show ahead of Celtics-Mavs by mocking the fight between Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe on FS1’s Undisputed. It took place on Wednesday over Bayless’s insensitive tweet about the Damar Hamlin medical emergency.
Barkley broke into the introduction by telling Shaq with a big smile on his face that he was “sick of him” for interrupting Johnson.
“It’s the first show of the year and you’re already interrupting him. Can he finish his monologue?” Barkley asked.
Shaq couldn’t contain his laughter at Barkley, while Johnson told them to stop as the whole cast tried to contain their laughter.
The schtick between Barkley and Shaq mimicked Wednesday’s episode of Undisputed where Bayless interrupted Sharpe as he addressed his absence from Tuesday’s show.
“Skip tweeted something and although I disagreed with the tweet, and hopefully Skip will take it down, but I didn’t want to,” he said before Bayless interrupted.
“Timeout, timeout. I’m not going to take it down because I stand by what I tweeted,” Bayless said.
“I can’t even get through a monologue without you interrupting me,” Sharpe fired back. “I was just going to say, Skip, I didn’t want to yesterday, to get into a situation where Damar Hamlin was the issue. We should’ve been talking about him and not getting into your tweet. That’s what I was going to do. But you can’t even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.”
Bayless came under fire for tweeting a question about the NFL’s scheduling plans shortly after Hamlin was taken to the hospital on Monday night. Many thought the tweet was in poor taste considering the gravity of the situation surrounding Hamlin.
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