It was a marquee matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night as LeBron James made his return to his beloved home city. As it turns out, the crew of NBA on TNT also wanted to celebrate the occasion by coming up with a very special race between hosts Shaq and Kenny Smith.

Racing to the big board has been an age-old tradition among the fun-loving crew of the program. However, Tuesday's race turned out to be extra special with the great Shaquille O'Neal taking a vicious fall after being forcefully pushed to the ground by Kenny Smith:

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Photo: Boban Marjanovic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shaquille O’Neal

Derick Quinanola ·

As Charles Barkley said, that was bad. This also proves how physically fit Kenny Smith still is at 57 years of age. Shaq may have lost a ton of weight of late, but there's no denying the Hall of Famer still remains to be a mammoth of a man. Smith just shoved him to the ground like he was a little boy. O'Neal took a huge fall and he fell right into the huge Christmas tree on the set. Shaq had to collect himself a bit after that tumble, and it wasn't until after the clip that he was able to get up from where he was lying.

This is all in good fun, and I'm pretty sure Shaq is going to take this like a good sport. It was still a pretty bad fall, though, so let's just hope the four-time NBA champ didn't hurt anything here.