{"id":7994,"date":"2025-05-04T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T14:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/7994\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T14:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T14:30:10","slug":"charles-barkley-has-words-about-top-nba-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/7994\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley Has Words About Top NBA Contender"},"content":{"rendered":"

While NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal is “leaning towards”<\/a> the Denver Nuggets in their upcoming playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Charles Barkley has a different opinion.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets survived a grueling seven-game series against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round and are now heading to the Western Conference semifinals to face the top-seeded Thunder.<\/p>\n

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While the Nuggets have championship experience and are being led by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, the Thunder pose a serious threat considering their depth and star power. MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a phenomenal 2024-25 run in the regular season, finishing as the scoring champion with 32.7 points per game.<\/p>\n

\"Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander handles the ball against the Houston Rockets.Erik Williams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Considering what\u00a0Gilgeous-Alexander and OKC have shown so far, Barkley believes no other team<\/a> in the West can beat the Thunder.<\/p>\n

“I’m going OKC,” Barkley said during Saturday’s broadcast of “Inside the NBA” as the crew talked about their picks for the Nuggets-Thunder series.<\/p>\n

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“I have not seen anything in the Western Conference that make me think anybody can beat OKC.”<\/p>\n

Barkley proceeded to explain his stance, sharing his belief that the Thunder have the “best bench” in the NBA. The 11-time All-Star said it’s a huge advantage against a Denver team that “has not been anything with their bench.”<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if Barkley is correct with his analysis, but fans won’t have to wait long to see it.\u00a0After all, the Nuggets-Thunder series starts on Monday.<\/p>\n

Whatever the case may be, fans can definitely expect an intense series \u2014 especially considering the fact that the Nuggets and Thunder split their season series<\/a> in 2024-25. Denver even won their last meeting in March, 140-127.<\/p>\n

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Game 1 begins at 9:30 p.m. ET Monday in Oklahoma City and will be televised by TNT.<\/p>\n

Related: Fans Saddened By Charles Barkley\u2019s Absence From \u2018Inside the NBA\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal is “leaning towards” the Denver Nuggets in their upcoming playoff series against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,2001,187,292,135,6,1278,253,475,179,1165,209,574],"class_list":{"0":"post-7994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charles-barkley","10":"tag-denver-nuggets","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-on-tnt","15":"tag-nikola-jokic","16":"tag-oklahoma-city","17":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","18":"tag-playoff-series","19":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","20":"tag-western-conference"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114450046933423284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7994","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=7994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}