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Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics was TNT’s most-watched NBA ECF game ever, with 11.9 million average total viewers. TNT finished its NBA Playoff coverage with 4.7 million total average viewers, up 14% from last year and the network’s most-watched playoffs in five years.
“The way I see it is we’re making history either which way,” Heat guard Gabe Vincent said before Monday’s Game 7 at TD Garden in Boston.
The Heat won, 103-84, to advance to the NBA Finals and prevent the Celtics from being the first team in NBA history to win a playoff series after being down 3-0. TNT’s broadcast peaked at 14.2 million viewers, and the complete seven-game series finished as TNT’s most viewed ECF coverage in a decade.
Monday’s Game 7 was rated as TNT’s third most-watched NBA game ever. It broke TNT’s previous record for an NBA ECF broadcast, which was 11.6 million viewers in Game 7 of the 2013 ECF between the Heat and Indiana Pacers.
Boston’s Game 6 win on Saturday over the Heat to even the series at 3-3 averaged 8.7 million viewers on TNT, the network’s most-viewed NBA ECF Game 6 ever and the most-watched on any network in 11 years.
The Heat will face the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals on ABC starting with Game 1 on Thursday, which will be Denver’s first Finals appearance in franchise history. Miami is just the second 8th seed ever to make the Finals, joining the New York Knicks in 1999.
This year’s NBA playoffs have been breaking records since the first round, when Game 7 of the Warriors-Kings on ABC was the NBA’s most-watched opening round game in 24 years.
