LeBron James and Enes Kanter were hit with technical fouls and needed to be separated during a heated scuffle from the first quarter of Monday’s Cavaliers-Knicks game.

As Knicks fans applauded Kanter for standing up to LeBron, one New York sportswriter’s joke on Twitter crossed a line. Longtime writer Peter Vecsey reacted to the scuffle by quoting a Notorious B.I.G. lyric with a racial slur. Though Vecsey edited the N-word, the use of the slur (in any form) in reference to LeBron James did not sit well with NBA fans.

The backlash from Vecsey’s tweet poured in immediately.

He would later stand by his tweet in a reply.

Vecsey is the same writer who waited six years to respond to an insulting tweet from Magic Johnson.