Shaquille O’Neal gets shoved into Christmas tree as giant NBA legend goes flying
Basketball summariser Kenny Smith will have to watch his back after shoving the seven-foot-one frame of icon Shaquille O’Neal into a Christmas tree.
The pair both featured on the ‘Inside the NBA‘ television show when they were involved in a foot race to the summary board. It was then that former two-time NBA champion Smith nicknamed “The Jet” shoved his colleague causing him to stumble into the studio’s Christmas tree.
The light-hearted incident happened during half-time of TNT’s broadcast of the Los Angeles Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers game. Like everybody else in the studio O’Neal, nicknamed Shaq, was left laughing at his tumble with just his shoes visible from under the Christmas tree.
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Fellow television pundits made their way over to four-time NBA champion O’Neal who re-assured them: “I’m alright, I’m alright,” whilst laughing. After being helped out of the Christmas tree and brushing himself down the seven-foot one inch tall former LA Lakers star said: “This means war Kenny, this means war.”
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(Image: TNT)
In true analyst style Smith then talked over a replay of the incident while Shaq cleaned his beard. He said: “I saw the Shaq coming,”
“You’ve got 300 pounds going in one direction. As he’s going I saw him out the corner of my eye. But I know that’s a lot of motor going this way. So I just gave him a little shove and all of a sudden straight into the tree.
(Image: TNT)
The clip of Shaq falling into the Christmas tree was an instant hit on social media and has been viewed over four million times in the space of 12 hours. Lovable personality O’Neal retired from the NBA after 19 years in the game in which he was named in 15 NBA All-Star teams and then established a career in television punditry.
Shaq is starting to make a habit of falling into Christmas trees as a similar thing happened in 2014 also on the TNT half-time show. Fans couldn’t believe the incident had repeated itself @ShawnBurrier1 tweeted: “You are telling me this isn’t the first time Shaq has fell into a Christmas tree???”
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