Warriors’ NBA Finals Winning Streak Continues, Ratings Still Steady With 2017

It may have felt a bit too close to call up until the final minutes, but, in the end, the Golden State Warriors continued with tradition last night and defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Ohio to now lead the 2018 NBA Finals 3-0.

The continuation of course for the 110-102 primetime match-up comes from last year when LeBron James and crew were also denied a victory by Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and the rest of the GSW in Game 3 of the 2017 NBA Finals after suffering two back-to-back losses. In what was then the two teams’ third consecutive NBA Finals, 2016 champs the Cavs went on to triumph in Game 4 of the 2017 series before being shut down in Game 5 in Oakland and the 2015 champs GSW became the 2017 champions.

With a 12.7 in metered market results, last night’s exhilarating Game 3 of the 2018 NBA Finals dipped just 5% to be pretty steady from the comparable match-up of last year. That 118-1113 June 7, 2017 face-off in Cleveland went on to pull in 20 million viewers, to be the second most watched game of the series after the decisive Game 5.

According to Nielsen, last night’s Game 3 peaked with a 15.4 rating right near the end in the 11:15-11:30 PM ET slot. According to anyone who can do math, ABC has won the night yet again with the NBA Finals.

Taking a slightly bigger picture perspective though, last night’s MM rating is a victory of another sort being in line with what we have been seeing this series. It’s actually remarkable in that this is the fourth time these teams have been playing each other in the NBA Finals and no fatigue has set in and this comes in an environment where almost everyone is taking a real ratings hit, including the NFL

Right now in the early metric, Game 3 is even with June 3’s GSW winning Game 2. That Warriors’ 122-103 victory at home hit 18.5 million viewers on ABC in primetime, with a peak of 22.5 million near the end in the 10:15 – 10:30 PM ET slot.

Where things go on Friday night when the Warriors and the Cavs hit the court in the Forest City for Game 4 of this year’s Finals is TBD but we know for sure the expectations will be sky-high for Durant after last night’s stunning performance. Reminiscent of last year’s pretty great Game 3 effort, Durant scored a playoff career-best 43 points on Wednesday to help seal the deal in the minds of many that the GSW will be the ones holding the trophy in the end.

Listen to what the great player had to say after last night’s game here:

Unlike previous nights for this series so far, there were more than straw dogs on the rest of the Big 4 on Wednesday. Fox had MasterChef (0.9/4), NBC aired American Ninja Warrior (1.1/5) and Reverie (0.5/2), and CBS was all encores except for Code Black (0.6/3). Holding up OK considering the b-ball competition, they were all down a tenth from the fast affiliates of their NBA-less May 30 shows. Over on the CW, The Originals (0.2/1) was also down by the same metric from last week.

There’s no NBA Finals on tonight but in Game 5 of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals, the Washington Capitals could secure their very first ever title if they beat the Vegas Golden Knights. Up against the return of The Four: Battle for Stardom on FOX, the hockey action hits the ice at 8 PM ET on NBC. Lace up.

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