I have something bad to say about the announcing. Reggie Miller is awful at it. He insisted that the ice on the floor last night was popcorn for a good 5 minutes even as the broadcast was showing closeups.

So basically their ratings went back up to where they are supposed to be?

I agree AA, Spurs/Pistons would be the worst final ever....

Actually, Spurs in the final kills it all.

@ Same page,


Doug Collins, JVG, Matt Devlin, and Miller are growing on me, but that's it.

the ratings still arent that good and arent a whole lot better than a sport espn doesnt care about on a network noone gets

I do like how ESPN and TNT acknowledge each other's existence. It's like they are teaming up to actually (gasp) help the sport.

Ratings are up all over the place compared to last year, but generally not where they were at the start of this TV contract.

Also, these stories are usually based on Household ratings - which are completely useless. These people sell demos.

Here's the real story:

http://tvsportsratings.com/?p=35

It certainly doesn't hurt that the Lakers are in the WC Finals. The nation's second largest TV market has a tendency to help ratings in that regard.

JVG probably wouldn't work in a two-man booth, but he's the best third man around. His complaints about the way games are officiated with regard to physicality and consistency are dead-on, and he always makes the correct call regarding who blew a defensive assignment (too many announcers just say that whoever's man got the dunk messed up, but JVG knows better -- sometimes it's someone else who started the chain reaction).

Reggie, on the other hand, is only good for entertainment value, which isn't good enough when you've got Hubie and JVG doing their things on other nights.