Amazon Prime Video streamed its first NBA playoff game on Tuesday night during the Eastern Conference play-in game between the Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets.
It was a thrilling game as Charlotte’s Coby White hit an incredible three-pointer in the closing seconds to force overtime. With 48 seconds left in the OT period, the Hornets led 123-120. During a timeout, as analyst Stan Van Gundy and play-by-play man Ian Eagle were discussing the situation, the broadcast feed suddenly went out.
After a few moments of silence, viewers were hit with the dreaded screen showcasing “Technical Difficulties” and music that you might hear from the glory days of the TV Guide Channel.
Needless to say, it’s the worst possible thing that could happen to a streaming giant during one of its biggest sports broadcasts to date. And it wasn’t just a brief delay either. The feed was out for more than a minute and by the time viewers finally rejoined the action, LaMelo Ball had scored a layup to give the Hornets a five-point lead.
Even LeBron James called it out watching at home… as did pretty much every other NBA fan that was tuned in.
Thankfully, the feed came back and stayed in tact through an even more incredible ending to the overtime period. Tyler Herro hit on a three to cut the Charlotte lead to two, Miami then stole the ball, and Herro was fouled by Ball shooting another three-point attempt. He proceeded to make all three foul shots to give Miami the lead.
Incredibly, Ball then redeemed himself by making a lay-in before Davion Mitchell was frantically blocked at the other end as the Hornets held on for a 127-126 victory in what has to go down as the greatest game in the history of the NBA play-in round.
This could have been so, so, so, so, so much worse for Amazon Prime Video, though. If that delay would have hit just a few minutes later, fans would have missed the theatrics in the final seconds and potentially even the game-winning basket. Technical difficulties can happen to any broadcaster, but there were already complaints throughout the game that the audio and video feeds from Prime Video weren’t synced properly.
Streaming giants are already under a lot of pressure from sports fans for the additional apps and paywalls needed to watch the games of their choice. Now even the government is getting involved by trying to stop the NFL from moving more games off broadcast television and onto streaming. Amazon has streamed many NFL games just fine without any drama. But almost wrecking an epic NBA playoff game is not going to help the case for streaming giants.
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