Thursday's
Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN -- which saw the
Miami Heat stave off elimination and force a winner-take-all Game 7 --
delivered a 8.2 overnight rating, the best for a NBA game on cable since
records began in 2003, according to Nielsen.
That surpasses Game 4 of the series, which had previously set the record with a 7.9 overnight rating on June 3.
In
Miami, Game 6 delivered a 22.0 rating, the highest-rated NBA playoff
game on ESPN in the market. The game averaged a 20.5 in Boston, the
second-highest rated NBA game on ESPN there.
ESPN
concludes its NBA coverage for the 2011-12 season with Game 7 on
Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET. The winner will take on the Oklahoma City
Thunder in the NBA Finals beginning June 12 on ABC.
