On Saturday night ABC televised the NBA in primetime with the featured matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets. During the second quarter, the ESPN production suffered from some serious technical difficulties as the mics in the entire broadcast booth cut out in the middle of Mike Breen reading a promo for the upcoming games on national television.
As Jamal Murray was at the line, Breen’s microphone went out mid-sentence and the broadcast hung in silence until finally Lisa Salters cut in with apparently the only working mic in the arena.
What followed was multiple minutes of awkward silence to end the first half.
Lisa Salters stepped in to inform viewers of the trouble with the microphones in the broadcast booth and asked fans to hang in there. She did call one Michael Porter Jr. jump shot but wanted no part of doing play-by-play.
Sadly, Salters chose not to seize hold of the opportunity and made no more calls of the action. This was your big moment Lisa! The nation wanted to hear your play-by-play! Instead, she said she would try to run her microphone over to Breen so he could rescue the situation.
After several trips up and down the floor, Breen’s voice finally returned… but without Doris Burke or JJ Redick. That led Breen to quip that it was a “play-by-play guy’s dream” to be calling a game by himself without analysts. Burke or Redick weren’t heard for the rest of the first half as Breen took the action into halftime.
What caused the technical difficulties? Maybe it was Doc Rivers seeking revenge against Redick calling him out… or Jeff Van Gundy… or Mark Jackson. Given how much oxygen he takes up at ESPN, it’s just a shock that the network didn’t turn to Stephen A. Smith to fill the awkward silence the moment it transpired.