The Spurs and Thunder delivered a second-straight milestone audience in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals.
Wednesday’s Spurs-Thunder NBA Western Conference Finals Game 2 averaged a combined 10.10 million viewers on NBC across Nielsen (7.77M) and a streaming audience tracked by Adobe Analytics (2.3M), surpassing Heat-Bulls on TNT in 2011 (10.04M) as the most-watched conference final Game 2 in the Nielsen people meter era (1988-present).
Keep in mind that it was only the second conference final Game 2 on broadcast television over that span. Even in the days when NBC carried the majority of conference final games, Game 2 always aired on cable — the lone exception being Trail Blazers-Spurs in 1999 (9.15M), which fell into NBC’s annual Memorial Day window due to the late start of the lockout-shortened season.
Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes will generally skew historical comparisons, particularly to years prior to 2020. (It is a lock that Heat-Bulls in ’11 would rank higher all things being equal.)
Oklahoma City’s win, which peaked with 12.2 million in the 10:45 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 96% from last year’s Timberwolves-Thunder Game 2 on ESPN (5.16M). (NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
Including Game 1 on Monday night (9.16M), the two-game average for Spurs-Thunder is now 9.59 million (7.30M per Nielsen, plus Adobe Analytics), up 82% from a year ago and the highest on record for a West Finals. Regardless of conference, it ranks as the most-watched conference final through two games since Heat-Bulls in ’11.
Games 1 and 2 rank as the second and third-most watched games of the NBA season. The top spot still belongs to Sixers-Celtics Game 7 in the first round, which drew 10.99 million leading out of the Kentucky Derby. NBC owns the four largest audiences of the NBA Playoffs, including 7.90 million for Spurs-Timberwolves Game 4 in the second round.
The top non-NBC audience of the postseason came Tuesday night, when the Cavaliers-Knicks Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 averaged 7.1 million viewers on ESPN — the largest audience for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals since the LeBron James-era Cavaliers faced the Celtics in 2018. Viewership increased 9% from Pacers-Knicks on TNT last year (6.55M), within the range that could be explained by Nielsen methodological changes.
The Knicks’ comeback win, which peaked with 8.87 million in the 10:45 PM ET quarter-hour, was the most-watched Game 1 of a conference final on the ESPN networks since Lakers-Nuggets in 2023.
