Charles Barkley pulls no punches after Cavaliers

Charles Barkley labeled the Cleveland Cavaliers as “chokers” following their collapse after surrendering a 22-point fourth-quarter benefit to the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Tuesday night’s matchup at Madison Square Garden pitted the Cavaliers against the Knicks, coming just in the future after Victor Wembanyama’s exceptional Game 1 displaying for the San Antonio Spurs versus the Oklahoma City Thunder, the place the French star led his squad to a double extra time victory over the defending NBA champions.

New York, propelled by Jalen Brunson, mounted a 30-8 surge, night the score at 101-101 before in the end prevailing 115-104 in extra time. Brunson contributed 17 of his 38 factors in the closing eight minutes of regulation, while teammates Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns added 18 and 13 factors, respectively.

With Game 2 scheduled for Thursday night at MSG, the Cavaliers’ catastrophic fourth-quarter meltdown may go away them trailing 2-0 in the sequence before heading residence to Cleveland for Game 3.

In Barkley’s evaluation, Cleveland “choked,” with the NBA legend expressing bewilderment at Atkinson’s failure to name a timeout to halt the Knicks’ momentum during the fourth quarter. “You know, Ernie, I take my job very seriously, and I don’t like to get on TV and say people choked, but that was a damn choke job,” Barkley declared during ESPN’s postgame coverage.

“So they had a 22-point lead, and they just started milking the clock. Like a ‘prevent’ offense.”

Barkley’s broadcast colleague Shaquille O’Neal weighed in, expressing his personal disbelief at Atkinson’s game administration.

“Not only that Chuck, I don’t think the coaching from the Cavaliers had a great use of [their] timeouts,” O’Neal said. “Because, you know me and Chuck was in there screaming ‘call a timeout, call a timeout.'”

Barkley then said, “He let the lead go from 20 to like 6 and never called a timeout. But my problem was, if you go back and look, you show those highlights in the beginning, the ball was moving, everybody was getting wide-open shots.

“You return and have a look at the first six or eight minutes of that fourth quarter, and so they have been just going one-on-one. The shot clock was on their again every single time, and Kenny ought to have called a timeout sooner.”