Amazon Prime said the technical difficulty during its stream of the Hornets-Heat Play-In Tournament game was caused by “a hardware failure in our production truck” on Thursday night.
“The broadcast of the Miami Heat at Charlotte Hornets experienced a temporary disruption due to a hardware failure in our production truck,” an Amazon spokesperson said, per ESPN. “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.”
The feed cut out as the game resumed after a timeout with the Hornets leading the Heat 125-120 and 48.1 seconds remaining in overtime.
The blackout lasted for nearly two minutes, causing fans to miss 22.1 seconds of playing time and a Hornets possession.
A message that said “technical difficulties” was displayed afterward, leaving viewers on a cliffhanger during the Play-In thriller — including Lakers superstar LeBron James.
“Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I trippin?? WTH,” James wrote on X.
The Hornets went on to win 127-126 and eliminated the Heat from the postseason in the NBA’s first of six Play-In games.
The matchup between the East’s ninth-and-10th-ranked teams had no shortage of thrilling moments, including 16 lead changes and 17 ties.
The Heat remained in the game despite losing star big man Bam Adebayo to a lower back injury in the second quarter after being tripped by Charlotte point guard LaMelo Ball.
Adebayo did not return to the game.
Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said in his post-game press conference that Ball should’ve been ejected after the incident.
After the Hornets win, Ball said it wasn’t intentional and that he was going to check in on Adebayo.
Prime Video has exclusive rights to all six games in this year’s Play-In Tournament.
