The Loop
Shaq and Chuck put the Philadelphia 76ers in a body bag on Thursday night
If you've watched NBA on TNT or followed this website over the years, then you already know that Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley spend most of their on-air time assassinating each other. It's the coldest Cold War since the Berlin Wall fell. On Thursday night, however, they called a temporary cease-fire in order to address a common enemy: The Philadelphia 76ers, who coughed up a 101-112 capitulation to the Bucks in primetime, their fourth-straight loss. The corpse disposal started at halftime, when Shaq started baby talking over Joel Embiidshighlights . . .
. . . and continued after the game when Chuck delivered the fatal blow, calling the Sixers—who are 1-12 on the road against above-.500 teams this season—"the Cleveland Browns of the NBA." Where I'm from (planet earth), them's fightin' words.
There's a meme for this. Hold on, we know we have it here somewhere . . .
The Philadelphia 76ers currently sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference and look relatively safe, having a built an eight-game cushion on the 7th-seed Brooklyn Nets. Here's hoping Shaq and Chuck's comments electroshock the Sixers back to life, though. If not, another first-round exit—and perhaps the messy, inevitable end of "The Process" era—may here before we know it.