Charles Barkley Hits Back At Michael Malone For Viral Callout After Nuggets’ Turnaround: “We Get Paid To Give An Opinion”

Charles Barkley might have spoken a little too soon. The Denver Nuggets looked nowhere close to making a comeback in the semi-final series. The Minnesota Timberwolves spearheaded by Anthony Edwards utterly dominated the defending champions in the first two games. It was enough for Chuckster to make a massive claim that the Wolves would sweep the series. In response to that, Michael Malone hit right back at the NBA legend after leveling the series 2-2.

Malone in his response said, “I had an edit made… of every talking head in this country saying that the series was over, the Nuggets are done, it’s a wrap… I knew that this would maybe strike a chord,” during the press conference ahead of Game 5. And the Inside Guys didn’t hesitate to play the part where Barkley made the adamant claim.

Following that backfire with his statement, Chuck said, “Dude, we get paid to give an opinion. If you watched those first two games, you didn’t think Denver was going to win.” The debate didn’t start off right from there. It went across the room with the rest of the panelists. Draymond Green, who joined the team as a special guest, indirectly sided with Charles Barkley. The Dubs star raised a question on how far the Nuggets could have gained momentum from Chuck’s statement.

On the other end, Kenny Smith backed Malone’s views. In the end, it was left between Ernie Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq, thinking out of the box, asked Chuck to take Malone’s views as a compliment and not be upset. In return, Chuck made a commanding statement, saying, “If I got mad, he (Mike Malone) would know.”  Importantly, the Phoenix Suns legend didn’t end there. He also took a dig at Malone and even called him ‘Annoying’ on national television.

Charles Barkley takes a subtle dig at Mike Malone on Live TV

Michael Malone’s popularity grew multifold after he helped the Nuggets win their first title. During his time as the coach of the Denver side, he has established himself as an aggressive coach. He can be seen often heated up during the timeout huddle. Even the American rap legend Snoop Dogg expressed his admiration for him in a recent show with Stephen A. Smith, saying, “Co*ky AF, I like him.”

However, on the other end, Barkley rained down on him after Malone called him out. Chuck said, “Man, I don’t care. I have always liked Mike Malone… But he annoys me… He won a championship. He ain’t the greatest thing since sliced bread… We can only go by what we saw.”

Ever since Chuck hailed Anthony Edwards & Co. the team struggled to put together a victory. Ironically, in Game 4, Ant-Man scored his playoff career-high score of 44 points which also accounted for the most points scored by an individual in Wolves playoff history. The MJ-lookalike definitely needs to pull some strings to win the series. If not for his franchise, but for Chuck, who was definitely hurt by Malone’s words.

Will Ant-Man help Chuck take his revenge? Let us know in the comments.