A little more than a week after Houston Rockets player Tari Eason trolled the Golden State Warriors on social media, the Splash Brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, responded.
Houston won a game on March 27, moving to within a game of Golden State for the final play-in tournament spot. While he’s been sidelined since early January, Eason couldn’t help but trash-talking on social media. Specifically, he recorded himself on Instagram Live repeating “Warriors. Come out to play-ee-ay,” the line uttered by Luther, the character played by David Patrick Kelly in the 1979 movie, The Warriors.
Eason doubled down on the taunt on Thursday as the teams played, wearing a shirt with that message. For anyone who has not seen the movie, consider this a spoiler warning. But the game went about as well for the Rockets as things did for Luther when the Warriors came out to play. Curry and Thompson led all scorers with 29 points each and the Warriors won 133-110. For all intents and purposes, that locked up the final play-in spot for Golden State, as well.
Late in the game, Curry, sitting on the bench in garbage time, put three empty bottles on his fingers, mimicking Luther.
The Petty King is so back 😂💀 pic.twitter.com/60fGtCv8an
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 5, 2024
Thompson was asked about it in a press conference after the game. He slammed Eason.
Klay Thompson on the Tari Eason taunt: “That’s pretty lame. Especially if you’re not even playing…But you’re just gonna be trolling from the sideline. Bro, what are we doing?” pic.twitter.com/Q0ucnj55jh
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) April 5, 2024
“That’s pretty lame,” he said, per Anthony Slater, The Athletic. “Especially if you’re not even playing. Like, it’s one thing if you’re playing and you’re out there competing and you can back it up. But you’re just gonna be trolling from the sideline? Like, bro. What are we doing?”
The Warriors are now four games ahead of the Rockets and have the tiebreaker. As both teams have six games to play, Houston will need to be perfect and get a lot of help over the final days of the season.
[Warriors on NBCS on Twitter/X, Anthony Slater on Twitter/X]
