Charles Barkley on Hartensteins defense on Wemby: “For you people thinking that is physicality, you got to shut the hell up”
“A hack is a foul, physical is something else.” - Charles Barkley
“A Hack is a foul” 💅
Hackenstein
Why put McCain at the end of this, he doesnt hack. /s
Time for casuals to shut the hell up
To be fair to Wemby, dude gets on with his business other than that Naz elbow.
If he bulks up even more while figuring out the ideal weight for his knees and frame, watch out
Dude never looks at the refs for help or whistles like SGA, Luka, Jokic. He knows he’s the best and he knows he will get his.
He knows he and his team are better, and he knows even if the league or refs have an agenda, it’s up to himself to rise above.
Bro is doing tricks on it
Lmao, and joker in bubble run got to experience this strat (Dwight Howard) of physical/foul ball. That’s when he added the selling contact to his repertoire. If they think wemby won’t refine that craft they crazy
I won’t lie I have a record of hating on jokic but these wemby fans acting like he’s had it different than any other superstar are annoying me so much. Jokic has to deal with this kind of stuff every game off ball because he’s so big and I definitely see people annoyed by it but these wemby fans are next level.
My lord brotha. He’s not Batman
Wemby with prep time
Have you ever seen them both in the same place?… I didn’t think so.
Tbf a 7’5 Batman would be terrifying
Absolute Batman is 6’9 and 421 lbs. That shit is canon.
Ya know I’m a passive enjoyer of Batman (comics and comic movies in general) so I started looking the heights up after making that comment. There’s just so many. Ya absolute Batman is terrifying.
je suis la nuit.
How did you type this with face your pressed against Wembys groin
He KNOWS how to multitask.
Last bit started to sound like fanfiction
“He knows he’s the best” 🤓
it’s up to himself to rise above!
How his nuts taste 😂
I love wemby but he definitely flopped here and there
NSFW
Damn you tickle his balls at the same time?
“When a guy is banging you…”
Chuck has been on a roll recently for good takes
Future San Antonio Mayor?
he isnt polling well with the big women
SA also imports thin women from Austin and (god helps me) Dallas
If they’re thin and from Dallas, they’re missing teeth
Yeah but they fatten up quickly with those delicious puffy tacos
Tim Duncan’s wife is from Dallas, according to Charles.
They got some big ol’ women down there in San Antonio, it’s a gold mine for weight watchers. And Victoria definitely a secret
That dirty ass creek, it’s not a river
Did you know they invented the toothbrush down there?
If it’d been invented anywhere else they’d call it a teethbrush
My hot take is that chuck secretly loves the big women and likes them talking shit to him, he knew what he was doing
So in San Antonio that just means women.
You just know he’s gonna be in the pocket of big churros tho
I mean, to be fair, have you had a churro
I have, fuckstorm420, and they’re delicious.
It feels so weird in the modern day to see someone so deep in their career who hasn’t lost the plot. It’s like he pays attention and knows his stuff from years of experience, and I wish that weren’t such a rarity.
Chuck is usually pretty bad with basketball takes. He’s been stepping it up a bit with his takes recently.
I’d imagine someone on his team has seen the online discourse about how much fans have enjoyed Amazon’s coverage this year & is trying to pivot from memeable moments to actual coverage
Yeah I think the Amazon coverage has made them step up their game. Shaw is actually backing up his takes using the stat sheet.
That’s why monopolies are bad. Competition makes everyone step their game up
I don’t watch the whole program so I’m sure you have a fuller sense of his offerings. However, I just heard him say, following game 2 “They just wanna shoot long jumpers. But that’s the NBA now, no strategy”. It still sounds like the Chuck we all know and love.
He’s hilarious, but I hate how so many legends parrot this “no strategy” stuff to fans. I don’t see how it helps the league to tell fans teams aren’t using strategy when they really are. Tell us what they’re doing and why, please.
I get he’s a comedy guy, btw, just commenting on the improved analysis.
I was shocked to hear Tim Legler say Hartenstein was just playing physical basketball. Like what the hell?
I don’t think you understand what Chuck is saying in the clip
Almost every actual NBA player that talked about the game was praising IHart.
I mean there’s a difference from playing physical and straight up fouling with the intentionalality to stop a basketball play. 90s NBA didn’t have defenders casually pulling peoples arms at the right time to stop them from doing a basketball play. Imagine someone grabbing MJ’s arm when he’s going up for a rebound 10-20 times a game, that shit didn’t happen. You’d have fights break out over shit like that. The physicality came from leaning bodies onto each other stopping them from getting closer to the spot the other player wanted to go. It had no grabbing involved, it was 1 person standing there ground and not letting the other person move to the spot, that’s it. That’s all the physicality people are talking about.
Grabbing, pulling, pushing, scratching, clawing… That ain’t physicality, it’s just fouling and getting away with it.
this is a good take? He pulled someones hair lol
Hartenstein defending Wemby like he owes him money.
“Where’s my money, Wem-bowski”
I’m sure it’s down there somewhere, let me take another look
Obviously you’re not a golfer
Nice marmot
*Are you employed sir?
Employed?
Hartenstein and Dort when Wemby checks in the game
Ve are nihilists, ve believe en nos-sink!
Do you see a wedding ring on my finger? Does this place look like I’m fuckin’ married? The toilet seat is up, man.
He definitely received order to play a different sport right from the beginning of the game
Where’s my money man?
Oh you got money for fake mustaches, huh? How much did you pay for that fake mustache?!
All over him like the proverbial cheap suit.
You could have people do basically anything and someone would say “that’s what the average defense looked like in the 90s!!”
Guaranteed those people have never watched 90s bball
90s basketball looked nothing like you would think it looked from the way people talk about it today.
90s basketball is 8 (or 6 if they actually use a screen) players just standing around
Late 90s. Early 90s basketball was a lot of motion and battling in the key.
90s basketball is actually kinda boring compared to today’s games. But when you look at it from a “nothing else is on” because it was the 90s then the glorification makes a lot more sense.
The illegal defense rule was terrible. It made everything feel so clunky.
Dribble past halfcourt, pass, iso. Repeat til the scoreline reads 84-88.
I do miss the occasional post up game from centers like Olajuwon. Not the whole game, but some of that, and then kicking out of the double to the open shooter was fun
Karl Malone did that to Chuck in da 97 wcf 😂
Chuck wasn’t really his type. Too old.
There’s a comment I saw yesterday saying somewhere in the lines of “you’re not going to like the bad boys Pistons,” like, aren’t they an unlikeable bunch across the league even back then? We just look at them differently now since they won championships, and many fans didn’t really get to see their run. Physical and in-your-face defense is some good shit basketball, but this ain’t it.
People literally wanted to ban them from the league. They’re fun in hindsight but absolutely were shitheads.
Yup, they played some high level basketball. The backcourt of Zeke and Dumars was some real shit. They won so the means are justified for that team. Still, as fans, we just want to watch some good basketball.
They were fucking pricks but they weren’t floppers on the other end.
Laimbeer was a pretty big flopper
Laimbeer is and was an asshole. One of the dirtiest in history.
My moms family is from Detroit and I heard my uncle say how much he liked Laimbeer last time I visited. It made me realize I’d never heard someone say anything good about him til just then.
Nah they definitely flopped, maybe not to the same degree as now but they were happy to go exaggerate contact from the games I’ve personally watched.
(I was born in 2000 so not that many)
Why do people say this shit without having actually seen the games
Not only that, but Laimbeer and Mahorn et al were fouling out of games all the time. They played the way they played, but they were also getting called for it consistently. We’re not seeing that with the Thunder and to me that’s the main difference.
That’s my biggest issue, playing dirty is a legit tactic. You have to be strategical about it bc you can only take so many fouls, that’s fine. There’s a strategy behind the fouls you take and when, but when you just don’t get called for it there’s no strategy, it’s just do it as much as possible. If they faced the consequences they deserved, that’s just basketball, but they dont and it allows them to do whatever they want.
Exactly this.
If a team wants to play this way and accept the consequences when they get called, I don’t care. Might even enjoy it.
But the officiating is wildly inconsistent, and they whine when they do get called (or when they don’t get calls on the other end). They consistently get away with stuff other teams don’t.
Half the problem is with the NBA/refs. The other half is how the OKC players respond to the calls/no-calls. The way they play is itself not really the issue.
Also Laimbeer got punched and neutral fans pretty much said he deserved it
pistons fans knew he deserved it.
I hated the Bad Boys Pistons so much. I thought they were absolute pieces of shit. I didn’t think it was cool
People think they would know better than Chuck who literally played in the 90s lol
the funniest part is, game 1 was extremely physical but on the whole it was called fairly even. and people LOVED it. everyone raved about the officiating, and its not because the spurs won.
it was just enjoyable to watch 2 great teams play and the refs not be a problem
Its not defense where he was grabbing and holding Wemby. He did it on offense to prevent wemby from contesting shots. No one gives a fuck about physical defense.
Alright man I don’t know who you’re talking to
People are extra mad in this case just because it’s OKC but this is how every team is going to play against Wemby in big games for the next decade the Wolves did this as well which led to the infamous elbow
Unless your name is Joel Embiid big men have always had to deal with constant pushing and shoving on and off the ball without getting the foul call
I absolutely hate Shaq but will acknowledge the man had to deal with all sorts of targeted violence throughout his career
Teams legit had bench guys whose sole purpose was to commit 6 hard fouls on Shaq. That’s all they did, just fouled the shit out of him and made him shoot FTs.
Imagine if teams nowadays did the same. Wemby and Chet would be broken in half by now.
Of course, the refs actually called these fouls and teams were happy to do it because of Shaq’s free throw shooting
Exactly. But wemby can actually make free throws lol
It’s gonna get there, but both of those guys arguably haven’t really hit their physical prime yet so who knows how much better they can both be in a few years. We’re in for at least a decade (barring injuries) of amazing basketball
Both guys can also shoot free throws
Then Wemby and Chet will appreciate the free 12 points
Wemby literally said himself that the physicality in Game 2 was no different than any of the other 12 playoff games he played.
The only reason people are paying attention to it now is because it’s coming from OKC.
I mean they also saw the braid pull on Castle as well. Pair that with the hard play on Wemby and they look dirty
there’s a multitude of factors from Game 2 that have riled folks up as much as they are, but people have tried to start honing in on the same tired “that’s just physical playoff basketball” point to detract from the actual discussion.
Mitch having to challenge two nonsense foul calls on Wemby before the end of the first half, which both ended up being successfully overturned but left him without a challenge for the rest of the game
Hartenstein yanking Castle’s hair
the Castle backcourt violation call that wasn’t a backcourt violation
Jared McCain pulling Castle’s wrist down on the jump ball, resulting in a Thunder three
Isaiah Joe flopping on extremely minimal contact from Barnes, resulting in a Champagnie made three being waved off
call or no call, SGA flailing and falling over on the vast majority of shot attempts
This is exactly it. If it was just one or two of these, then so many more people would say “alright that was just a tough game”. However, when you see all of that and to top it off see Hart consistently holding Wemby, that’s when everyone points out just how bad the refs/league are fucking this sport up.
yeah. the whataboutism replies that i’m receiving to my comment are so funny too
seeing shit like “SGA is getting hugged on defense!” but in the same breath they want to completely excuse Hartenstein for wrapping up Wemby all game and say “that’s just physical playoff basketball!”
and SGA getting swamped while he’s literally still in possession and dribbling the ball is apparently supposed to be the same thing as Hartenstein holding Wemby off-ball in the paint on every single possession…? like what are we even talking about at this point
these people are so inconsistent with their opinions and thoughts on the game that i can’t even be bothered responding to their hypocrisy
Castle got McCain’s bicep going up too tbf
so… redo the jump ball
which is what they would usually do
Backcourt violation was correct and the jump ball didn’t involve any pulling, it was a shorter player coming up slightly short while reaching for the ball and making incidental wrist contact.
Also because the broadcast was spending a lot of time on it
It surely plays a part, and OKC isn’t the only team that does it, but they do get away with a higher level of physicality off the ball.
Gobert wasn’t doing this to Wemby last round. To this degree at least.
Can yall show me all these other clips of guys pulling other dudes’ arms to prevent them from blocking shots and catching oops and it not being called a foul? I keep seeing people say it’s just average grabbing, but I’ve never seen this happen to anyone else.
Yeha like the pushing and grabbing when Wemby is moving around is fine. Every star deals with that shit off ball.
But holding arms down is different. Its basically the same as holding down a players arm while they are trying to shoot which would be called 100% of the time
I’m that old dude from the 90’s and that was not defense. It was desperation like a climber about to fall off a cliff holding on to whatever he can do avoid death.
https://youtu.be/5U9k1U6nN-g?si=YsLKPxcdLMFp2uHE
0:20 - The very first possession has AD being held by two different GSW players with one hooking under his arm
0:54 - Draymond boxes out Hachimura while grabbing his jersey and Hachimura reaches over while pinning Draymond’s arm
1:15 - 32 has at least one arm hooked under AD’s and though our view is from the back, it looks like an arm bar
These are the first three times in the game with centers fighting for position and all three to me look like they have physicality that would be illegal by the books. I’ll admit that none of these have the force of Hartenstein’s most egregious fouls, but this is just me skimming a random early season game between two teams not particularly known for their physicality, compared to a highlight reel of the two best teams in the playoffs.
My main point is nearly every time two centers fight for position, someone is illegally holding the other.
It is true that bigs deal with more physicality, but that is not the entire story. We can easily compare. Watch the Knicks versus Cavs right now and you can see A LOT cleaner play between the bigs. It’s not even comparable honestly.
So it is definitely and absolutely more pronounced in the OKC vs Spurs series and honestly a deliberate strategy by OKC because they can not stop Wemby without those kinds of fouls
It’s not just cleaner play. KAT has done the same stuff and most of the time he’s getting called for it.
the pushing and shoving is whatever, but the foot stepping on the line, and putting your full body weight trying to pull his other arm down while he is going up, are the big issues that’s just an injury waiting to happen, and it’s not the normal battling for position.
Hey finally someone else saying this too. Bigs don’t get calls. Just the way it is. Unlike most superstar bigs. Wemby doesn’t have the freakish strength to bully his way through it.
And that’s a part of the reason Kareem favored the sky hook. He was never strong enough to push people around, so he went over them.
No, it was precisely because he couldn’t be physical on offense, otherwise it would be an offensive foul. That and the dunk being banned in the NCAA because of Wilt him, so he needed something else to score easily.
I’ve been watching basketball for 40 years and I can’t recall a game where a player was holding one of the rim protectors arms on nearly every play. Maybe it happens and yesterday was just the first time the broadcast focused on it.
I’m mad because it’s fun as hell to watch wemby play defense but not if he’s been held on every play.
This is such a fake narrative and outrage. No one is mad at the physical defense. We’re mad at the flops and dirty sneaky shit they try to do constantly
Said it last week, I can’t imagine any level of any sport where gamesmanship doesn’t come into play when a player on the other team is a gamebreaker
The gamesmanship meta usually also has to adapt though, the holding can’t be not called all series.
Like if they start calling OKC for all the holding in Game 3, from Game 4 OKC has to be like okay we just bought this info from Wemby’s high school crush for $10k but he’s extremely ticklish under his left armpit.
Then you’ll see OKC tickling in Games 4-6, before that starts being called and they have to find something else.
Gotta blackmsil Brandon Sanderson for spoilers Chet can whisper into Wemby’s ear
lmao this is good
Lu Dort’s gonna read him his fanfic where Adolin actually falls in love with Sadeas.
This is the worst comment I’ve seen anyone write during this series. Holy hell man tone it down.
I would fucking die if games 4-6 involve Chet trying to tickle Wemby
Hit him with the chin chilla or a lil razzle dazzle under the armpit.
Can you define “gamesmanship” for me ?
Pulling some bullshit to win
I propose we just start using “some bullshit” instead of gamesmanship. I love that that’s an accurate descriptor.
Look up “Jordan rules” lol
The Dark arts
I watched Chuck’s era and there absolutely was physicality, but they also called fouls. Are we also going to pretend Shaq only went to the line once a night?
Wemby going from 13ft to 2ft is wild considering the increased physicality from game 1 to game 2
Since anything off-ball goes, how about Spurs put Kornet in just to hold Hartenstein and keep him off Wemby? Hell, maybe everyone can just hug it out for 48 minutes of good, physical, whistleless basketball.
Pistons and Rockets should just hold every single off ball player and have their Thompson guard the ball handler 1-on-1. They’ll hold opponents to like 20 points per game.
Sweaty millionaires hugging it out for 48 minutes minimum? Sign me up! Adam Silver’s product keeps getting better and better
Football linebacker plays
I don’t disagree, but there were a LOT of fouls not called on Shaq, too. It’s part of being a great big man.
I don’t think anyone wants every foul called. The hugging or even pushing is not a big deal. When you’re doing things like pulling down an arm to stop a player from jumping that’s when it starts to be egregious
You really couldn’t have chosen a worse example. Shaq got fouled probably 20-30 times a game. Maybe half of them were called. Wemby isn’t the first big star to get roughed up in the playoffs, despite what media and Spurs fans might think.
Shaq would also slam full force into stationary defenders until he could dunk it, offensive fouls didn’t exist. They were fouling him on purpose
He’s grabbing people’s arms..pulling people’s hair…but okay 🤨
Well in Barkley’s day, throwing a dude on the ground by his neck and knocking the wind out of him was just a considered a good defensive play /s
Yeah Chuck played against Laimbeer and Mahorn… so that is kind of his baseline of what really physical play is…
Chuck also got into fist fights and would play the rest of the game, so his perspective might be a bit different.
I still can’t believe the chief wasn’t ejected for clubbin laimbeers face 😂😂😂
That’s the little known “Yeah, understandable” rule. If it was somebody else he probably would have been tossed, but Laimbeer had that shit coming for a long time and even refs knew it.
Unironically people pretend that is true. What the lowlight clips don’t show is that this kind of shit was absolutely a foul 99 times out of 100, but because flagrant rules didn’t exist and someone got away with some bull shit in 88 everyone assumes that in the 80s and 90s it was just no holds barred WWF kinda nonsense 24⁄7 with mother fucking Laimbeer coming off the top rope.
The reality was that those fouls generally resulted in players spending a LOT of time at the foul line (like a solid 25% more FTA/g than we see in our “can’t touch a player without them going to the line” league).
Players back then thought it was wrong but couldnt do anything about it so it became part of the game
Aren’t you agreeing with him?
This clip was too short for context, is that what Chuck was saying?
With this clip he could be saying we are all soft or he could be saying what Hart is doing is different than regular physicality and he doesn’t like the play style pushing the rules
I found the full clip and he is calling it soft.
I thought he meant there’s a difference between being physical and just holding people down because you aren’t strong or tall enough play the right way.
I agree with it not being overly aggressive. Totally fine when they’re banging down low. I just wish they’d call when he’s yanking on Wemby’s arm. That one only happens when Wemby has already established better positioning and “won.” If you’re going to foul after being beat, those fouls need to be called.
“when a guy’s banging you…”
Literally exactly. Using your body and forcing him out of the paint is literally nothing compared to grabbing his arm and shoulders. If Wemby didn’t realize he was grappled tightly he could literally have his arm yanked out of the socket. I want to see physical basketball. It brings a fun element back to the game where guys can use their own physical strength to gain advantage.
It’s just really fucking annoying that the team being physical is also the team that flops on just about every fucking thing imaginable on offence but I digress lol
OKC fans walking that fine line of agreeing that holding and pulling wemby isn’t even physicality but every touch on SGA is a foul “by the books”
Who’s even complaining about SGA’s freethrows? He took 6 lol. He got fouled a shit ton but who gives af. It’s the playoffs.
Smart and Castle both been all over SGA without him getting a call. I got no issue with that but y’all acting like it’s not happening because you just hate OKC lol.
I ain’t seen a soul with a Thunder flair bitch about how Castle was guarding Shai off ball. We are used to and expect playoff physicality.
Gotta sort by controversial
if someone pulls and tugs chucks arm back in the day he’d probably start throwing haymakers on their second attempt lol
fr. If we’re gonna have 90s physcality gotta make room for 90s consequences.
This is the best response. You can’t let guys hack away and offense has no recourse. That’s how you end up with Wemby just straight up elbowing Naz Reid.
Was wondering how a pro-OKC post got upvoted, then I realized most room temp IQ redditors probably just read the title and think Barkley is on their side.
I’ll be honest, I can’t even tell what Barkley is meaning to say. It’s such a short clip, I need more context.
The clip should be a bit longer. Just before he said “I have been kissed harder”
In the full clip, Charles criticized fans complaining about OKC physicality and said he’s been kissed harder.
Yeah they think Charles is calling the OKC out
Listen, OKC is annoying and all that, but IHart’s grabbing is just average physical basketball. Timberwolves did the same thing. Every team does it.
Now IHart pulling Castle’s hair and that going uncalled for was a much bigger issue. Dangerous and dirty for sure
You can blame the refs for not calling IHart’s fouls but players will do as much as they are allowed to do by the refs during the playoffs
Idk but Chet stepping on wembys foot isn’t “playoff basketball”
Can yall show me all these other clips of guys pulling other dudes arms to prevent them from blocking shots and catching oops and it not being called a foul? I keep seeing people say it’s just average grabbing, but I’ve never seen this happen to anyone else.
People complain about how “nobody plays defense anymore” then when Wemby tries to play defense he gets grabbed and held. NBA offense has so many advantages already.
Its not average physical basketball. Its low skill, dirty ball that you see in mens leagues at the gym by the guys who dont have the skill to keep up.
Yeah for me the pulling is par the course for big man paint play, just let it be consistent. The hair pulling and flopping is what I’m complaining about
Lots of clip watchers on Reddit. The wolves and Blazers also did this (Every team in the playoffs is doing this). Look how castle and harp are defending shai (grabbing and pulling). Hair pull aside nothing is different than how every other NBA playoff game is played.
What he was doing is literally against the rules.
I grew up watching basketball in the 90s before the rules changes in 2001 and 2005. I prefer that style of play.
Regardless of how I or Chuck feel, those were all still fouls.
Chuck is right. People want more physical basketball in the playoffs as long as it’s not OKC.
His defense against Wemby was fine. The grabbing and holding of Wemby happened on offense to prevent him from contesting shots. No one is complaining about the defensive end.
No one is complaining about the defensive end.
Ermmmmmmm yeah lots of people are
Thunder flairs in the comments hoping to God no one brings up Hartenstein pulling the back of Castles hair like a guy giving a hoe backshots
Chuck says it like it is lol
It wasn’t physical defense, no one has an issue with that.
It was blatant fouling.
The real issue is the inconsistency in the calls. If that same exact defense was played on Hartensteins by Wemby, he would’ve been fouled out by 2 quarter.
Wemby was getting some good holds and hooks on iHart and Chet yesterday
Spurs have to challenge twice in the first half because Wemby get called fouls early.
Meanwhile iHart has 0 fouls for the entire second half.
I’m convinced people don’t actually watch basketball. In the Spurs vs Wolves and Spurs vs Thunder is some of the most ‘physicality’ I’ve seen since the 04 pistons.
Go watch tape of Charles Barkley in the playoffs and tell me how it compares to now in terms of the amount of holding, roughing up, etc.
Not aggressive true, I think people would celebrate a low post banging center playing hard and fighting for every spot on the block and rebound, the problem is that he just blatantly grabbing and hanging on.
Holdenstein. For once I liked Chuck lol
allow elbows then. they did it back then
Where was this narrative when people were saying Wby was justified in elbowing Naz in the neck?
who are people here? Because it seemed like only the dumbest spurs fans to me.
IDK what side Chuck is taking. If it’s not physicality, what is it? It’s definitely not normal defense.
He’s defending hartenstein. Here’s the full clip: https://np.reddit.com/r/Thunder/comments/1tk2ps3/charles_barkley_take_on_hartenstein_defense_vs/
Yea it’s the playoffs this is how it goes