Charles Barkley is formally recanting his prediction less than two weeks into NBA playoffs.
The retired basketball icon Barkley had a funny moment during ESPN’s coverage of Game 5 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. During halftime at Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, Barkley spoke on the Cavaliers, who trailed 74-67 at the break.
Prior to the postseason, Barkley had picked Cleveland to win the Eastern Conference and make the NBA Finals. But on Wednesday, Barkley reversed course and publicly apologized for his prediction.
“I just gotta say man,” said Barkley. “I just wanna apologize for picking the Cavs to get to the Finals.”
"I just wanna apologize for picking the Cavs to get to the Finals."
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 30, 2026
Charles Barkley reacts to the first half of Raptors-Cavs pic.twitter.com/vA1AjLHTyH
The Cavaliers won 52 games during the regular season and were the East’s No. 4 seed. They also made a drastic win-now trade at the February deadline by picking up former NBA MVP James Harden from the LA Clippers.
But Cleveland entered play on Wednesday tied 2-2 in the first-round series after getting all that they could handle from Toronto. The Cavaliers lost Games 3 and 4 of the series by a combined 26 points to the Raptors, who have not had Immanuel Quickley (hamstring) at all during the series and also lost Brandon Ingram (heel) in the early stages of Game 5.
Cleveland did ultimately course-correct in the second half of Wednesday’s game and beat Toronto by a final score of 125-120 to open up a 3-2 lead in the series. But considering how bad the Cavaliers have looked at certain points, they are already giving some buyer’s remorse to Barkley (who really is not the best when it comes to predictions).
