If there’s one guy, Tim Hardaway Sr. has circled on his imaginary hit list, it’s Tyrese Haliburton. The Pacers star has been living rent-free in the Hall of Famer’s head for quite some time now. “If there’s one guy I want to go play against, I want to go play against him in my prime to show him and to shut him up.” Hardaway once fired off. These two have been tossing jabs for a while, and it’s been pure entertainment. And just when you thought it might cool off, Tim poured a little more fuel on the fire.

In a league like the NBA, where every move can flip a game, trash talk is a well-planned strategy. Players use it to rattle opponents, throw them off their rhythm, and force bad plays or quick fouls. And when it comes to talking that talk, Tyrese Haliburton’s got it down to an art. This guy knows exactly when and how to get under his opponents’ skin. But not everyone’s a fan of his antics. Tim Hardaway Sr. isn’t having it, and he made that crystal clear on the latest episode of Bleav.

Tim said, “This is my thing with Halliburton. All right. I’m a shit-talking person on the court. Okay, if you out there and you gonna talk shit, I talk shit whether I’m losing or whether I’m winning. All right, you just can’t talk smack when you are winning.” That’s the problem for Tim; he feels Tyrese only runs his mouth when the scoreboard’s in his favor. Hardaway wasn’t done either. He name-dropped some of the game’s coldest trash talkers, reminding folks how the greats did it differently. “You know, he [Bird] talked when he was losing, and all them talked when they was winning,” Tim added, giving props to Chuck Person, Reggie Miller, and Larry Bird. In his eyes, trash talk’s a 24/7 job, not just when things are going your way.

Tim wasn’t finished throwing shade. He doubled down, saying,  “So that was my problem with (Tyrese) Halliburton when you out there winning… But even when you lose, don’t clam up. Don’t get real small. I can’t see you and then you don’t want to talk smack, and you be hiding behind your teammates,” In Tim’s book, if you’re gonna dish it out, you better keep that same energy when things go south too. Trash talk, win or lose. It’s part of the code.

Now with Tim accusing Tyrese of ‘hiding’ when the heat’s on, it’s only a matter of time before Haliburton fires back. But before this back-and-forth heated up, how did it even start? Well, let’s rewind and break it down.

What sparked the beef between Tyrese Haliburton and Tim Hardaway Sr.?

Things officially hit a boiling point when Tim Hardaway Sr. let loose on Gil’s Arena podcast earlier this year. The Hall of Famer went off after taking issue with how Pacers players, especially Tyrese Haliburton, trash-talked his son, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Pistons star Cade Cunningham. It all went down in the final seconds of Indiana’s January 16th win over Detroit. Pascal Siakam and Tyrese exchanged words with the Pistons, although it looked like just another standard endgame chirping.

But Tim Sr. saw it differently. As he said, “If I go back and put on my s— and suit up, I wanna go f— up Haliburton. I wanna f— him up. He talks so much s—. I wanna go back and bust his motherf—– a–. He talks so much s—. He thinks he’s all that.”  And you already know, Haliburton wasn’t about to let that slide. A few days later, he clapped back with a cryptic tweet: “Tell the world the real reason you feel this way, Tim.” That one tweet poured gas on the fire, and since then, this beef’s been simmering.

Now, with Tim’s latest “hiding behind your teammates” accusation, it feels like this feud’s about to get a whole lot messier. Stay tuned, because this drama’s nowhere near done.