Jimmy Kimmel Taunts Ted Cruz, Accepts His One-on-One Basketball Challenge

“You may remember Ted [Cruz] as the guy who once called the hoop a ‘basketball ring’ on the campaign trail, which we had a lot of fun with,” said Jimmy Kimmel at the top of his late-night program Thursday evening.

On Tuesday night, Kimmel joked that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) looked “like a blobfish” in a photo he tweeted of himself courtside at Game 7 between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors (Cruz’s Rockets lost). Cruz apparently took a break from “liking” incest porn posts and on Wednesday night tweeted a reply to Kimmel:

“Besmirched! He really knows his way around a diss track, this Ted,” cracked Kimmel. “So I immediately went online and googled ‘how to guard a blobfish.’”

Kimmel then began trolling Cruz, requesting a specific dress code for their already-embarrassing potential matchup:

“But this now could be a real thing,” Kimmel said. “Why he wants to do this, I don’t know. You really wanna play basketball against a talk-show host? You already lost an election to a reality show host. Isn’t that enough?”

“But if he wants to do it, I feel like I have to do it, right?” added Kimmel. “So yes, Ted Cruz, I do accept your challenge. I will play you one-on-one.”

The comedian then threw to a clip of him scoring on Shaquille O’Neal during his huskier days.

“Senator, I played against Shaquille O’Neal. I know Shaq. Shaq is a friend of mine. And you, Senator Cruz, are no Shaquille O’Neal,” he said. “So this will be fun. Gotta figure out the details. Maybe we should schedule it for the Monday before the midterms? It would be fun to see him lose twice in one week, right?”