In what can best be described as a scrum for the ball from James Harden of the Rockets in the final seconds of the game, the Golden State Warriors narrowly beat the Houston Rockets 99-98 to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
The tight series, coupled with Stephen Curry as the MVP and James Harden as the runner-up for MVP has made for television ratings gold for
That game was up 27 percent from last year’s Western Conference Finals Game 2 that had the San Antonio Spurs up against the Oklahoma City Thunder which delivered a 4.4 overnight rating.
To add context, Game 2 of MLB’s ALCS that fell on a Saturday between the Kansas City Royals and the Baltimore Orioles drew a 2.6 and 4.3 million viewers, up 18 percent in ratings and 26 percent in viewership from Los Angeles Dodgers-St. Louis Cardinals (2.2, 3.4M) and down 16 percent and 14 percent, respectively, from Tigers-Yankees in 2012 (3.1, 5.0M) for TBS.
The home markets for Game 2 of the Western Conference finals pulled massive numbers. The San Francisco and Houston markets both pulled a 15.9 rating. For San Francisco, that’s the second-highest rated NBA game (non-Finals) ever in the market. In Houston, it ranks fifth all-time among highest-rated NBA games (non-Finals) in the market.
In terms of streaming video, the Golden State-Houston Game 2 generated an average minute audience of 127,161, which makes it the fourth-best ever for an NBA game on WatchESPN.
