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Amazon Prime attributed the streaming hiccup during the Hornets vs. Heat Play-In Tournament clash to a “hardware failure” in their production truck on Thursday night.
An Amazon representative explained to ESPN, “The broadcast of the Miami Heat at Charlotte Hornets encountered a brief disruption because of a hardware failure in our production truck. Our teams worked swiftly to restore the feed, allowing fans to watch the game’s conclusion. We are conducting a comprehensive internal review to identify the root cause of the outage.”
The interruption occurred just as the game resumed post-timeout, with the Hornets holding a 125-120 lead over the Heat and 48.1 seconds left in overtime.
The blackout persisted for almost two minutes, during which fans missed out on 22.1 seconds of game action and a critical Hornets possession.
A “technical difficulties” message appeared on screens, leaving viewers—including Lakers star LeBron James—in suspense during the intense Play-In showdown.
“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.