The “Inside the NBA” hosts will anchor ESPN’s NBA playoff coverage beginning next season, so if this year was the “swan song for Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins, it did not appear to end well,” according to Adam Zagoria of the Newark STAR-LEDGER. Smith was “heavily criticized on social media for a rant” during the pregame show before Sunday’s NBA Finals Game 7 in which he “said Perkins was ‘really annoying’ him.” That prompted ESPN’s Bob Myers to retort with, “Just because you yell something doesn’t mean it’s true” (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 6/23). USA TODAY’s Robert Zeglinski wrote basketball fans “were begging” Smith to do a “more responsible job of setting the stage” before Game 7. Fans wanted him to “respect the magnitude of the game more, rather than making his coverage as part of ESPN’s in-game studio panel all about himself.” Early on ESPN’s broadcast, what should have “been a simple conversation about an over/under” for Thunder C Chet Holmgren’s final Game 7 point total “devolved into Smith totally veering off track so he could yell about his frustrations with Kendrick Perkins’ analysis.” During Smith’s “aimless (and needless) rant, you could actually see” Myers “growing frustrated when the camera panned over to his face.” It is “clear that this studio show needs to be blown up before the next NBA season begins” (USA TODAY, 6/22).
ENDURING MOMENTS: POYNTER’s Tom Jones writes the injury to Pacers G Tyrese Haliburton will “stand out” as one of the “enduring memories of the 2025 NBA Finals, but unfortunately, so will ABC/ESPN’s coverage.” The pregame and halftime shows are ”being slammed by media critics and basketball fans,“ with the overall complaint that Smith and Perkins “made the show all about themselves instead of the game, players and teams.” It “came to a head” ahead of Game 7 when Smith and Perkins started arguing, with Smith getting “particularly loud.” The actual game coverage with play-by-play announcer Mike Breen and analysts Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson was ”just fine, not sensational.“ Jones writes he does ”like the trio of Breen, Burke and Jefferson." This was “only their first season together,” so one more season could help them “develop a little more chemistry” (POYNTER, 6/24). SI’s Jimmy Traina wrote ABC’s “best moment and most powerful moment covering the NBA Finals came immediately after Game 7″ when the net’s cameras caught Haliburton “in the tunnel on crutches greeting teammates and other members of the Pacers organization after the team’s loss” (SI, 6/23).
