ABC drew a 5.8 overnight rating for Rockets-Clippers NBA Western Conference Semifinals Game 7 yesterday afternoon, marking the best figure for any first- or second-round game on any ESPN network since ABC drew a 5.9 overnight for Heat-Pacers Conference Semifinals Game 4 in '12. There were no Conference Semifinal Game 7s in ’14 or ’13. Celtics-76ers Conference Semifinal Game 7 in ’12 drew a 5.5 overnight on ABC on a Saturday night, while ABC's Thunder-Grizzlies Conference Semifinal Game 7 in ’11 drew a 5.1 overnight on a Sunday afternoon. Rockets-Clippers Game 7 yesterday peaked at a 7.7 rating from 6:00-6:15pm ET. The game drew a 25.1 local rating in Houston, marking the highest-rated NBA Playoff game ever in the market (records date back to '03). The game drew a 9.5 local rating in L.A. (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
CRYING FOUL: In Phoenix, Dan Bickley wrote this year's postseason has been "marred by far too many injuries and far too many free throws." Rockets-Clippers Game 2 had 96 foul shots, a number that is "terrifying" and representative of a "real problem for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his lofty approval rating." The solutions to the "ugliness and wayward drift" of the current postseason "are many and simple." Yet Silver "seems to be leaning in the other direction." He is "sitting on a powder-keg issue regarding regular-season basketball, and how devalued it has become inside the NBA." Because the schedule is "so unnecessarily long, including far too many contests on consecutive nights, you never know who is going to play and who is going to play hard." Bickley: "You buy tickets at your own risk" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 5/16).
