Shaquille O'Neal had a quick reason ready when Larry David appeared on screen during New York Knicks vs. San Antonio Spurs Game 4.
The NBA Finals broadcast had already delivered plenty of celebrity shots at Madison Square Garden, but David's cameo gave Shaq a chance to revive one of the strangest crossover jokes in basketball television history.
It was not a serious grudge. It was Shaq reaching back to a famous scripted moment that has followed him and David for more than two decades.
Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images
SportsCenter shared the moment after the camera panned to Larry David during Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
"I don't like him, he tripped me," O'Neal said.
The line drew laughs because Shaq delivered it like an old wound, even though most fans knew he was playing along with the bit.
David is a longtime Knicks fan, so seeing him on the MSG broadcast made the callback even cleaner.
Shaq has always been at his best when he mixes basketball memory with television timing, and this was one of those small broadcast moments that instantly traveled online.
The joke goes back to Curb Your Enthusiasm, when David's character sat courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game and accidentally tripped Shaq as he ran near the sideline.
The episode, titled "Shaq," aired in 2001 during the show's second season. In the storyline, Shaq gets hurt, David becomes public enemy No. 1 in Los Angeles , and the fake backlash becomes another uncomfortable Larry David spiral.
That is why Shaq's Game 4 comment worked so well. The trip was fictional, but it has lived long enough in pop culture that O'Neal can still treat it like a personal grievance whenever David appears near an NBA broadcast.
With the Knicks and Spurs locked into a Finals fight, the quick joke gave ESPN a lighter celebrity-row moment. Shaq may not actually dislike David, but he clearly has no plans to let that old courtside "incident" disappear.
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