ESPN panned for ’embarrassing’ NBA Finals halftime show

If you missed ESPN’s halftime show from Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, you didn’t miss much.

The Boston Celtics dominated the first half of Game 1. When the second quarter ended, the ESPN on ABC broadcast went to commercial. When it came back, Mike Breen and J.J. Redick did the “Gettin’ Buckets’ segment.

Redick focused on Boston’s great three-point shooting in the first half. The segment lasted about 20 seconds. When it was done, the broadcast cut away to another commercial break.

After the commercial break, the halftime show resumed with the on-site studio team.

Host Malika Andrews kicked it over to Michael Wilbon, who was impressed with the play of Kristaps Porziņģis, playing his first game in more than a month after returning from injury. Bob Myers and Stephen A. Smith also both briefly spoke in the segment that, rounding up, lasted a minute.

Before going to commercial, Andrews threw in a teaser that New York Knicks forward Josh Hart — who was at the desk but said nothing in the previous segment, would talk about how to slow the Celtics down after commercial.

As it turned out, the brief commentary of Wilbon, Myers and Smith was the studio crew’s longest non-commercial segment of halftime.

Hart did talk about how Dallas can slow the Celtics down. But the segment lasted roughly 20 seconds, with Hart talking for about half that time.

And that was it from the studio crew.

When the broadcast returned from commercial again, it was the game’s announcers, Breen, Redick and Doris Burke.

Breen shared the first-half stats. Redick and Burke both offered a brief commentary on the first half. By the time Burke was wrapping up her thoughts, the third quarter had already begun.

All told, the studio crew got roughly a minute and 20 seconds of air time. And remember, that time was split between five people. Much of that time was spent on intros from and outros to commercial breaks.

The effort was widely panned.

And that gets to the heart of the issue.

We understand the need for commercials. The bills have to be paid and it’s not like the ESPN on ABC crew is there for free.

But if you can’t give your studio crew even two minutes of screentime at halftime, what’s the point of having a studio crew? Or, at the very least, what’s the point of having them on location?

[Photo Credit: ESPN on ABC]