Jalen Rose Cracks Drake Lawsuit Joke on 'Inside The NBA'

Jalen Rose wasted no time letting the zingers fly on the "Inside the NBA" set ... cracking a joke about Drake's UMG lawsuit in his debut on the iconic show -- and his cohosts ate it up!!

The funny moment happened at halftime of the Lakers and Suns' NBA Cup matchup on Tuesday ... when Kendrick Lamar's new track, "tv off," started playing on the broadcast.

Just like K. Dot does on the song, Shaquille O'Neal immediately yelled out "Mustard!!!!!!" ... and Rose -- who was filling in for Kenny "The Jet" Smith -- made the quick quip.

"I don't know if y'all should be playing that Kendrick. You don’t wanna get a lawsuit up in here!!"

Of course, Rose is referring to Drake's lawsuit over Kendrick's "Not Like Us" diss track that gained massive attention and seemingly solidified his win in their ongoing beef.

In the suit, the Toronto rapper claims an "inside source" told him that Universal Music Group used bots and made "covert payments" to other platforms to promote the song ... a strategy known as "payola."

UMG has denied the allegations ... calling them "offensive and untrue."

Shaq's "Mustard" shout might not have been a shot at Drake ... as pretty much everybody who has listened to the new Kendrick track has yelled out at least once since the project dropped last week -- although Mustard DID produce "Not Like Us," too.