Thursday night featured a high-octane matchup between Stephen Curry‘s Golden State Warriors and Luka Doncic‘s Dallas Mavericks, which quickly turned into a three-point duel between these two Western Conference sides. Basketball Hall of Famer and co-host of NBA on TNT Charles Barkley was on the broadcast and he did not hold back with his criticism of the trigger-happy matchup.
Barkley completely went off as he called out the two teams for taking too many three-pointers on the evening — and this was only during the halftime break:
"Y'all sit there and watch this stupid ass basketball, just jack up 3's all night. If they go in, we win. If we miss, we lose. Give me a break, you dumbass."
Charles Barkley went off during halftime of Mavs-Warriors 👀https://t.co/viGHUfmRAa
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) February 5, 2021
The game has transitioned to be more three-point heavy over the past few years, and at this point, it is no longer surprising whenever we see games wherein teams combine for well above 60 attempts from distance in a single contest. However, as Charles Barkley so scathingly pointed out in his tirade above, the fact that the Warriors and the Mavs were putting up an insane amount of three-point attempts, 93 to be exact, simply does not sit well in his book.
Stephen Curry finished with 28 points and six assists while knocking down four of his 10 three-point attempts. Luka Doncic had 27 points, six rebounds, and six assists for Dallas while making three of his seven attempts from three. The star of the night, however, was Kelly Oubre, who finished with a career-high 40 points and eight rebounds on 14-of-21 shooting from the field and 7-of-10 from beyond the arc.
It is worth noting that the Dubs entered this matchup without a traditional center available. James Wiseman, Kevon Looney, and Eric Paschall were all out of action in this one, which left coach Steve Kerr with no other choice but to run with small-ball lineups with Draymond Green playing the five. This clearly played a role in Golden State's decision to rely heavily on their outside game — more than they usually would — with the Mavs gladly following suit.
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