Malika Andrews Spared as ESPN Show Embarrasses NBA Community in Nuggets vs OKC Game 6

Tonight’s game 6 between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets was quite controversial. Not for anything that happened during the game. No, it was actually the broadcast that fans had issues with, specifically the fans watching on ESPN. And only Malika Andrews, who was also associated with this debacle, was spared from their rage.

As fans, we are all used to networks having a halftime show to keep us entertained and invested in the game during the 15-minute break. But tonight, ESPN’s halftime show was almost unanimously lambasted by NBA fans. Simply put, they were not fans of the content on display. And even senior Lakers insider Anthony F. Irwin couldn’t help but criticize ESPN.

“I genuinely don’t understand the point of ESPN’s halftime show. It’s honestly the dumbest content in all of sports and that’s obviously saying something,” he wrote in a post on X. Clearly, even someone who’s as involved with the league as Irwin couldn’t help but voice his frustration. And the only person fans and insiders like Irwin didn’t seem to mention in their criticism of the halftime show was Malika Andrews. Everything else seemed to be fair game.

“commercial — 15 second segment showing one highlight then saying the real halftime show starts after the next commercial — commercial 2 minutes of kendrick perkins thoughts on the half — commercial —15 second segment saying the games coming up after next commercial —commercial,” is how a fan summed up the halftime show tonight.  And there were several users online who instantly found themselves agreeing with this fan.

So, we scoured the internet to find the best reactions to the halftime show that ESPN put on during Game 6 of the series between OKC and the Nuggets. Here’s what we found.

Fans call out ESPN for lackluster halftime show

A lot of people simply didn’t like the format of ESPN’s halftime show tonight. “espn comes back from a 7 minute commercial break with 45 seconds of analysis then back to commercial. Their halftime show is pure s–t,” wrote an X user. And no one wants to sit through commercials when all you want to do is watch the ball game in peace. In fact, the lack of commercials was why streaming services like ESPN+ took off in the first place. But now, we seem to be coming full circle in that regard, with long ads becoming the norm once more.

However, some fans weren’t fans of the analysis on display from the personalities on-air like Kendrick Perkins. “ESPN needs to replace everyone on their halftime show outside of Malika. Zero entertainment, zero analysis, zero value,” they beseeched the American sports giant. As a former player, fans expect more from Big Perk. On the other hand, Malika Andrews seems to be carrying the entire show on her back despite only joining ESPN a few years ago.

And it’s not just about ESPN’s show being bad in isolation. Fans found that they could simply be watching a much better product on another network. “The ESPN NBA halftime is so much worse than the TNT show it’s actually embarrassing,” wrote a fan. But another felt it was important to give ESPN some credit for how bad their show was. “Agree. But ESPN is just bad, not merely bad by comparison to TNT,” they wrote. And wow, if it’s that bad, not even Malika’s best efforts tonight could have saved ESPN from this disaster.

All in all, tonight needs to be a wakeup call for ESPN. Viewers today are better informed and more aware than they’ve ever been. And feeding them an inferior product will not fly, even if you’re one of the largest sports broadcasters in America!