50 Cent and The Game‘s bitter rivalry once threatened to boil over at Tim Thomas’ birthday party until Snoop Dogg saved the day — according to the former NBA star.

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Appearing on the Weekend Work podcast, Thomas recalled celebrating his birthday at Diddy’s soul food restaurant in New York City the mid-2000s, and said The Game was keeping tabs on his movements in hopes of running into his bitter rival.

“We were at Justin’s eating and Game comes in and said, ‘Yo, I need to talk to you.’ I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ At that time, I don’t really know the ins and outs of 50’s business,” the former Knicks forward began.

“He’s like, ‘Yo, you talk to Five?’ I’m like, ‘Nah, I haven’t talked to him in a minute.’ At this particular moment, the guys were out of the country. Snoop was in town, he coming to the party and we were playing the Lakers.”

He continued: “There was just so much going on. I just wanted to have a good game, which I did — I think I had like 35 that night. Then I just wanted to get to the party and enjoy myself.

“But there was so much tension going on because at that moment, Game was following me around the city to see if I was gonna link up with Fif […] It was so much tension because everybody wanted to make a move. They didn’t know if they should make a move or whatever, and I was like, ‘Yo, it can’t go down, right?’”

Fortunately for Thomas and the rest of the attendees, Snoop’s arrival at his birthday party diffused the tension that was brewing and prevented any violence from erupting.

“What eased all the tension was when Snoop came,” he explained. “When Snoop came, that kinda deaded everything. When the O.G. came in, I knew then and there, ‘Alright, things gonna be aiight. Everybody gonna get to where they need to get to.’”

Tim Thomas also recently reflected on how 50 Cent’s beef with Fat Joe in the mid-2000s caused a rift in his relationship with former Knicks teammate Stephon Marbury.

“Me and Steph grew up together, we went to Five Star Basketball camp. I knew his brothers, his mom, his pops. We actually played for Fat Joe with Terror Squad at the Rucker,” the Villanova product explained. “It was really no issues between us at all until 50 and Fat Joe got into it.

“That’s when me and Steph kinda separated. We was actually teammates at this particular time. It was a lot of different things that transpired between those three years of them beefing. I remember Fat Joe being courtside and Steph showing him love. And I’m looking at them like, ‘Damn, I can’t go over there and say what’s up to him?’”