Charles Barkley roasted Shaquille O’Neal with a brutal one-liner that left his Inside the NBA co-hosts in stitches.
As the crew watched the Orlando Magic pull away from the Atlanta Hawks in the first half of their play-in game on Tuesday night, Shaq declared Atlanta ‘dead’.
To really drive that point home during the halftime report, the four-time NBA champion brought out a Harry the Hawk soft toy before trying to perform CPR on the Atlanta mascot.
“I have some bad news, the hawk is dead,” Shaq began, with Atlanta down 61-47 after two quarters.
“We’re going to miss you Harry. He’s dead, the hawk is dead.”
Later in the report, the crew revisited Shaq’s antics, showing a slow-motion replay of the 15-time All-Star giving the mascot mouth-to-mouth, as he joked about resuscitating Atlanta’s playoff chances.
“I tried, I tried, Harry, come back,” O’Neal pleaded as he watched the footage.
Barkley then hit his co-host with a brutal dig.
“You kissed some chickenheads in your day too, bro,” Chuck said, firing light-hearted shots at Shaq.
The rest of the Inside the NBA crew burst out laughing, as Kenny Smith described Barkley’s joke as the ‘funniest line all year’.
“The big man had no comeback, he is on the ropes,” Ernie Johnson added.
“Referee stops contest.”
It wasn’t just his co-hosts that Barkley – who once threw a man through a window – delighted with his joke.
The segment went down very well with fans watching at home, too.
“The fellas bringing chaos and comedy — Playoff season, here we go!” one person wrote.
“He’s peaking just as the playoffs start, about to go on a generational run,” another said of Chuck.
“Can’t beat it. This is the best show on TV,” a third wrote.
“One of Charles Barkley’s funniest jokes of all time. Shaq was stuck,” a fourth said.
The amusing segment was a sharp contrast to when the pair gave an emotional Johnson his flowers on a special show last week.
While O’Neal’s declaration that the Hawks were ‘dead’ at halftime may have been a little premature, Atlanta failed to pull the game back in the second half.
Cole Anthony came off the Magic bench with 26 points and six assists to lead Orlando to a 120-95 win.
Earning the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed, the Magic will move on to face the Boston Celtics in the first-round of the playoffs, with the series starting Sunday.
Atlanta’s star guard, Trae Young, was ejected in the fourth quarter of the loss after he picked up two technical fouls in quick succession.
The Hawks, who have reached the playoffs through the play-in route in two of the past three campaigns, will now compete at home Friday night for a chance at the eighth playoff spot.
They will play against the winner of Wednesday night’s game between between the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat.
