{"id":13794,"date":"2025-05-06T16:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13794\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:56:11","slug":"charles-barkley-makes-strong-statement-about-chet-holmgren-after-game-1-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13794\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley Makes Strong Statement About Chet Holmgren After Game 1 Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder clashed in a heavyweight fight for Game 1 of their second-round playoff series on Monday. The Nuggets upset the 10.5-point favorite Thunder (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401769820\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:ESPN Bet;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">ESPN Bet<\/a>) with a 121-119 win at Paycom Center to steal the home-court advantage and send a clear message to their opponents.<\/p>\n<p>While Nikola Jokic put on a show with his 42 points and 22 rebounds, Aaron Gordon was the man of the night, as he added 22 points, 14 rebounds and a game-winning 3-pointer to seal the deal for his squad.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Among his highlights, Gordon put Thunder&#8217;s second-year big man, Chet Holmgren, on a poster with a little over two minutes left on the clock in the second round.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon.Isaiah J&amp;period; Downing-Imagn Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"639\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4f464dbfca3cc9f4eaf5c98a06c08cea.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon.Isaiah J&amp;period; Downing-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>That dunk caught a lot of attention on social media, but Charles Barkley&#8217;s comments on how Gordon looked much superior to Holmgren also turned many heads. A Redditor who goes by the name &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/nba\/comments\/1kg4mg2\/chucks_advice_for_chet_holmgren_put_some_rocks_in\/?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Classic-Carpet7609;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Classic-Carpet7609<\/a>&#8221; shared a 12-second clip of Barkley&#8217;s reaction to the play.<\/p>\n<p>The 1993 NBA MVP made fun of Holmgren&#8217;s lack of strength against Gordon, who is way more muscular than the Gonzaga product.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Get out the way, little man,&#8221; Barkley said. &#8220;Get off me, little man. Get in the weight room. Damn, put some rocks in your pocket!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>View the <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/charles-barkley-makes-strong-statement-chet-holmgren-game-1-loss-nuggets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:original article;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">original article<\/a> to see embedded media.<\/p>\n<p>Holmgren finished the game with 12 points, six rebounds, two assists and one steal. Even though he posted four blocks, he couldn&#8217;t prevent Gordon from scoring and cutting the Thunder&#8217;s lead to 55-43 in that possession.<\/p>\n<p>The Nuggets entered the 2025 NBA playoffs with several questions to answer, but the first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers left them in a much better position to face the No. 1 seed in the West in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>Oklahoma City must win Game 2, which is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/aaron-gordon-turns-heads-wholesome-134850895.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Related: Aaron Gordon Turns Heads With Wholesome Gesture After Nuggets Win;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Related: Aaron Gordon Turns Heads With Wholesome Gesture After Nuggets Win<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder clashed in a heavyweight fight for Game 1 of their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,7,2001,366,301,187,3943,5582,135,6,253,302,475,179,1415],"class_list":{"0":"post-13794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-charles-barkley","11":"tag-chet-holmgren","12":"tag-denver","13":"tag-denver-nuggets","14":"tag-denvernuggets","15":"tag-heavyweight-fight","16":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nikola-jokic","19":"tag-nuggets","20":"tag-oklahoma-city","21":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","22":"tag-the-nuggets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114461945838190406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}