Shaq, Charles Barkley react to police getting involved in Clippers-Rockets fight
One of the wildest stories of the NBA season unfolded on Monday night when the Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets had some on-court confrontations spill over into the locker room. As you might expect, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t get enough of it.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said that some Rockets players pushed into the Clippers’ locker room after the game, and they were looking for Austin Rivers and Blake Griffin. One report claimed it was really Rivers who set the Rockets off, and police were called to the locker room area to diffuse the situation.
LAPD was called into the locker room area. Now hearing Chris Paul stayed out of it, 3 Rockets players were going after Austin Rivers.
— Ashley Brewer (@abc7ashley) January 16, 2018
Barkley and Shaq were blown away that the incident escalated to the point where police needed to get involved, and they ruthlessly mocked the players over it. Check out this hilarious clip from the TNT postgame show:
Shaq and Charles Barkley dying of laughter after "police presence" called for locker room confrontation between Clippers and Rockets pic.twitter.com/QxZxrPBHHd
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) January 16, 2018
The details surrounding the feud are almost surreal. Rivers didn’t even play in the game, but he managed to infuriate Trevor Ariza by talking trash from the bench. Ariza and Griffin ended up getting ejected from the game after they got into it, and Rockets coach Mike D’Antonio later said the incident began when Griffin hit him. A video appeared to show Griffin making contact with D’Antoni.
As if the story wasn’t crazy enough, the Rockets supposedly made their way to the visiting locker room through a secret entrance, sending one player to the front door to serve as a diversion. That led to some of the best memes and tweets we have seen in a while, and Shaq and Chuck would probably enjoy every last one of them.
