- Amazon’s NBA stream cut out with less than a minute left on the clock
- The game was offline for about two minutes.
- Amazon blames outage on hardware error
With less than a minute left in overtime of a tight Heat vs. Hornets NBA game, the Amazon Prime Video stream cut out, leaving viewers staring at a technical difficulties message for nearly two minutes.
At possibly the worst time for a stoppage to occur, basketball fans watching at home missed Charlotte extending their lead, but fortunately were able to tune in before the game concluded, to see Charlotte’s team eliminate Miami’s team from the play-in event, blocking them from entering the postseason playoff tournament.
Unsurprisingly, the interruption infuriated viewers. Social media threads Like this one they are full of complaints that “streaming sucks” and another exclaims: “It shouldn’t be that hard to watch games.”
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Even LeBron James was angry about the problems: “Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I tripping?? WTH.”
Tell me the game didn’t just cut itself off?!!? Am I tripping? WITH 🤦🏾♂️April 15, 2026
For many, the outage, plus other frustrations like the commentator’s audio being slightly ahead of the video and the loss of the ability to quickly pause or rewind the stream, confirmed their fears that Amazon was inferior to the old home viewing experience.
It also follows other live streaming woes from Netflix and its Skyscraper Live event, another example of a platform proving that its VOD doesn’t necessarily translate into a premium real-time viewing experience.
As for the cause of the NBA game outage, a Prime Video spokesperson said the issue was due to “a hardware failure in our production truck” and that a “thorough internal review” of the outage is underway.
We’ll have to wait and see if the streaming situation continues for Amazon, but hopefully, this is simply a teething problem that needs to be resolved.
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