Fans Left in Dark During Prime NBA Outage — and Wolves Games Are Next

NBA fans no longer have a backup viewing option when things go wrong, and that became a problem Tuesday night during the Eastern Conference play-in tournament game between the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat.

That game, which Charlotte won in an overtime thriller, was streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime, just like Games 1 and 3 of the upcoming Timberwolves-Nuggets series will be.

Viewers were hit with technical difficulties at the worst possible time, with 48 seconds left in overtime, during a timeout, while the Hornets were leading Miami 123-120. The audio dropped out first, and then the screen went black. After 20 seconds of nothing, a "Technical Difficulties" screen was displayed.

The disruption lasted 1 minute, 48 seconds, and by the time the video and audio were restored, the Hornets were leading 125-120, meaning viewers missed LaMelo's Ball's layup with 26 seconds left in the game. Instead, fans waited in agony as funky music played over the technical difficulties display.

Prime Video's broadcast went off the air for nearly two full minutes during overtime in Heat-Hornets. pic.twitter.com/oStTMMprNm
— Sports TV News & Updates (@TVSportsUpdates) April 15, 2026

Amazon Prime Video stated that viewers "experienced a temporary disruption due to a hardware failure in our production truck." A company spokesperson added that they "restored the feed as quickly as possible to ensure fans could watch the conclusion of the game."

Prime has exclusive rights to roughly one-third of the league's first- and second-round playoff games. The odds of another technical difficulty occurring are probably pretty slim. Still, the pressure is on Prime to ensure smooth sailing the rest of the season, including Games 1 and 3 of the Minnesota-Denver series, and perhaps more, since the TV and streaming details haven't been revealed for Games 5, 6, and 7 (if necessary).

Here's the latest broadcast info for the Wolves-Nuggets series:

Game 1: Saturday, 4/18: 2:30 p.m. — Amazon Prime
Game 2: Monday, 4/20: 9:30 p.m. — NBC
Game 3: Thursday, 4/23: 8:30 p.m. — Amazon Prime
Game 4: Saturday, 4/25: 7:30 p.m. — ABC
Game 5: Monday, 4/27
Game 6: Thursday, 4/30
Game 7: Saturday, 5/2

Regional sports networks, a la FanDuel Sports Network, have historically been allowed to broadcast the first round of the NBA playoffs, and without the alternative channel, a technical difficulty like Prime experienced Tuesday night leaves everyone in the dark.

That said, the Timberwolves played a bunch of games on Prime during the regular season, and none of them were disrupted by technical issues.

In the meantime, Prime says the cause of the outage is under investigation.

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