The NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder have been fantastic. The series has featured great games, thrilling finishes, and terrific basketball at both ends of the floor.
However, the coverage from ABC and ESPN has been a different story.
Whether it’s the pregame coverage, the studio, the broadcast booth, or even the court decals, there have seemingly been more complaints from basketball fans than any Finals series we have seen in modern memory. It’s the culmination of a full season of frustration that has seen the basketball media continually make things about themselves instead of the players on the court, often ignoring the Thunder and Pacers for most of the season in favor of flashier storylines.
Ratings have been low between these small-market teams, as expected, but how much of that rests at the feet of the NBA and ESPN themselves for failing to build and present a product that can captivate America? ESPN and the NBA can instantly improve their Finals coverage and win back fans’ support. And it won’t be hard to do so with just a few easy steps.
More stories, less talk
ESPN’s NBA Finals coverage begins with a half-hour pregame show that, for the most part, masquerades as a miniature version of First Take. Before the pivotal Game 4 on Friday night, here are the topics that NBA Countdown covered:
- What’s at stake for both teams? (In Game 4 of the NBA Finals! Yes, really!)
- A DoorDash promo segue into Indiana’s defense on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
- Isaiah Hartenstein moving into the starting lineup for the first time in the series
- Pregame predictions
It’d be one thing if ESPN’s NBA studio crew was well-liked and offered something fun, fresh, or exciting for basketball fans. But there’s a reason why ESPN is licensing the Inside the NBA crew beginning next season. Malika Andrews does the best she can, but there’s only so much that can be done with Stephen A. Smith, Bob Myers, and Kendrick Perkins.
“This is a legacy moment.”@KendrickPerkins wants the OKC Big 3 to ‘shock the world’ in Game 4‼️ #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/xVgZ2zSMm4
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) June 14, 2025
Additionally, it’s just the same debate-style crosstalk that you see anywhere else on ESPN at all hours of the day, with Smith and his solitaire-inspired opinions at the center. What about something that introduces us to some of the impact players in the series taking a turn on the national stage for the first time? Ben Mathurin and TJ McConnell had two of the great games off the bench in recent Finals history; there was nothing on either before Game 4. What about featuring someone who does actual reporting, like Brian Windhorst, Shams Charania, or others more consistently?
We often hear complaints about these players not being known quantities, especially when they play in small markets, but this will likely remain the case if ESPN and the NBA don’t take steps to allow fans to connect.
Show more pregame festivities
Sometimes, we can get tricked into thinking that everything that happened when we were younger was the best thing ever. Nostalgia can be a potent influence. But there’s no contest to the way the NBA Finals look and feel now compared to the glory days of the Michael Jordan Bulls and the NBA on NBC. Fans have been clamoring for the return of player introductions that set the scene and made the players look like larger-than-life figures for years.
But with ABC, we get none of that. Instead, once the clock hits 8:30 p.m. ET and game coverage begins, we get a brief stand-up courtside with the game announcers, followed by five minutes of commercials (more on that later), and then the opening tip. Feel the excitement! Maybe SGA and Tyrese Haliburton would feel more like superstars if they were actually presented in their home arenas as such.
Bring back the NBA Finals aura
Remarkably, one of the top storylines throughout the NBA Finals has been the presence or absence of court decals. ESPN’s NBA Finals presentation was widely panned in Game 1 for looking and sounding like a regular-season game, with very little establishing that the Pacers and Thunder were in fact playing for a championship.
The overwhelming social media reaction even reached NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who responded to the criticism. Even though the giant Larry O’Brien court decal has been absent for years, it probably says more about the overall frustration with NBA Finals coverage that it reached a tipping point this year.
“I’ve seen some of the chatter on social media about on-court decals. People don’t realize, they went away a decade ago. There were claims, Kendrick knows…they were slippery…we’re back to adding them virtually.”
Adam Silver on no on-court decals during the NBA Finals. pic.twitter.com/YRhxLaR0TK
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 12, 2025
Following that response, ESPN and the NBA pivoted to include a digital Larry O’Brien trophy and Finals script logo on the court. While it’s not quite what it used to be, it’s at least better than nothing.
Now, if we could only do something about reducing the number of YouTube TV ads on the court and broadcast. At times, you can see up to SIX YOUTUBE TV ADS AT ONCE. It leads anyone watching to ask what’s the most crucial thing here, the NBA Finals or YouTube TV?
I’m playing a fun game called “Count the YouTube TV ads on screen at one time during the NBA Finals”
See if you can beat my high score of 6. pic.twitter.com/hXn0cRiENe
— Zack Gibney (@zackgibney) June 12, 2025
Cut the commercials
The problems persist at halftime, where the halftime show interrupts the commercials rather than the other way around. The ESPN studio coverage (as mentioned above) has plenty of issues. But when it comes to halftime, the panelists don’t have the time to say anything of value. And what little time they do have is sometimes spent yelling at each other.
The ESPN show receives just a few short minutes of screen time, while the majority of halftime is spent on commercials. And the incredible thing is that it has literally been this way for years. This is the Finals, so you can understand that the NBA and its major broadcast partner want to make whatever advertising revenue they can. But are they so desperate for those dollars that they halt entirely any momentum for their marquee product?
Seriously, ESPN and the NBA would be better off not doing a halftime show at all and just showing some in-arena entertainment on picture-in-picture than what they are forcing their studio crew to work with. At least we might get to enjoy Red Panda.
Establish a top broadcast booth and stick with it
We may not have fully appreciated it at the time, but NBA fans were treated to one of the top broadcast trios in the history of sports broadcasting in Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, and Jeff Van Gundy. Given the strength of their relationships and chemistry, the three worked well off each other. And their longevity as the NBA Finals broadcast team, calling 17 consecutive championship series, is unparalleled.
But that all changed when Jackson and Van Gundy were let go by ESPN. The network’s hopes to pair Doc Rivers and Doris Burke with Breen were quickly derailed when Rivers returned to coaching. The same happened with JJ Redick, who called last year’s Finals once he joined the Lakers.
This year, it’s Richard Jefferson’s turn at the top. Although the three all have their strengths as broadcasters, their chemistry together has left much to be desired. And really, they are more the victim of circumstances than anything else. A trio that was awkwardly placed together on the fly, compared to one that had worked together for almost 20 years, is not a fair comparison as Richard Jefferson himself said.
Unfortunately, the Breen-Jefferson-Burke trio may only get one year themselves, as ESPN is already mulling changes.
2026 marks the NBA’s new era in television and the beginning of a new rights cycle. The one thing that ESPN cannot do is turn their NBA Finals broadcast booth into the revolving door that their studio has been and keep mixing and matching every year in the hopes of striking gold. If they stick with the existing trio, then give them time to establish their chemistry. If it’s Breen, Jefferson, and a new analyst, so be it. If it’s Breen and Tim Legler, that would be fine, too. But whoever calls the 2026 NBA Finals needs to be given time to grow and develop together.
