Rockets attempt to troll Warriors, lose by 23

With the NBA regular season rounding into the final stretch, the battle for the play-in becomes more intense, especially in the Western Conference. The Golden State Warriors have struggled for most of the year, holding onto the final play-in spot at 10th place going into Thursday. Their opponent? The Houston Rockets, who were rolling into this game, but came in at 11th looking to sneak into the play-in.

This of course, lead to some shots being thrown the Warriors way by a young Rockets team looking to usurp one of the defining NBA franchises of the decade. Rockets forward Tari Eason was doing most of the jawing at Golden State, especially on Instagram. From Mar. 27, on Eason’s Instagram:

There’s poking the bear, and then there’s whacking it over the head with an ACME hammer. Eason knew what he was doing firing shots towards the Bay Area, now all the Warriors had to do was respond.

Well... they took that ACME hammer and swung it repeatedly into the Rockets on Thursday, making sure the Rockets knew they got the message. Golden State beat Houston 133-110 and now have a four game lead over the Rockets with six games left in the regular season. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson combined for 58 points and had a lot to say about Eason, who didn’t play, but wore this shirt during the game:

Curry let the Rockets know as the game was winding down, flipping Eason’s reference to get some shots in on Houston.

Thompson took his ire to postgame, where he let his thoughts be known about Eason’s antics:

The lesson here is: don’t try and troll when you won’t be playing in the game, because the get back can be even more brutal.