The Play-In game between the Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets brought its fair share of drama, which was cut on air as well. From LaMelo Ball’s accidental trip of Bam Adebayo to Amazon Prime Video making its NBA debut on the postseason stage, there were a lot of talking points after the game. Nobody, however, expected it to go literally dark, as with under a minute left in one of the most gripping overtime finishes of the season, the broadcaster’s feed cut to a “technical difficulties” screen, and the basketball world, LeBron James included, lost its mind.
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Amazon Prime Video’s stream of the Miami-Charlotte play-in game went offline for nearly two minutes during overtime. It caused fans to miss a Hornets possession, with analyst Stan Van Gundy being mid-sentence when the audio feed was lost as the game was coming out of a timeout with 48.1 seconds remaining. When the video and audio feeds resumed, Charlotte’s Ball scored for a 125-120 lead, as fans missed about 22.1 seconds of live playing time.
Amazon has since acknowledged the failure and promised a full probe. A spokesperson for Prime Video said, “Tonight’s broadcast of the Miami Heat at Charlotte Hornets experienced a temporary disruption due to a hardware failure in our production truck. Our teams restored the feed as quickly as possible to ensure fans could watch the conclusion of the game. We are conducting a thorough internal review to determine the cause of the outage.”
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Statement from a Amazon Prime Video spokesperson on last night’s outage: pic.twitter.com/7dMg8492Fb
— Colin Salao (@colincsalao) April 15, 2026
LeBron James, who watched from home, summed up the collective bewilderment of millions: “Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I trippin?? WTH,” he posted on X as “technical difficulties” began trending nationally. James was not alone, as Atlanta Hawks guard CJ McCollum spoke about the issues, claiming it was “absurd” to have critical issues like that during overtime.
The Timing Could Not Have Been Worse, and James Knew It
The streaming service began showing NBA games this season as part of the league’s new 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal. Additionally, it holds exclusive rights to all six games in this year’s play-in tournament, and Tuesday night’s Heat-Hornets clash was its very first NBA postseason broadcast.
The outage came at its most critical juncture, as beyond the blackout itself, Amazon also came under fire for incorrectly displaying that the Heat had a timeout remaining when they did not, adding a graphic error to the technical one. There were also separate reports that the commentator audio had been slightly ahead of the video feed for the entirety of the broadcast.
This technical gaffe is the last thing the league and its viewers, including LeBron, wanted to see. LeBron, the four-time champion on his “Mind the Game” podcast, sounded genuinely hyped about the playoffs and will be watching the play-in games before the Lakers begin their postseason journey against the Houston Rockets on Saturday.
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Mar 18, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) splits the defense of Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun (28) and guard Reed Sheppard (15) in the second half at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images
Fans will expect that the incident was an aberration. As Amazon Prime Video is also set to broadcast the first three games of the NBA Playoffs on Saturday, leaving the broadcaster precious little time to get its house in order. The outage did not, at least, rob fans of the finish, where Miami’s Tyler Herro hit a huge three-pointer to draw the Heat within one, before a steal led to another Herro three-point attempt in the dying seconds. Ball then drove for the game-winning layup to seal a 127-126 Hornets victory, sending Charlotte through and ending Miami’s season. For Prime Video, the finish may have saved the night’s legacy, but the investigation has only just begun.
