YES Scores Third Best Basketball Rating with Nets-Lakers

The Brooklyn Nets wound up on the wrong end of a tough one at Staples Center last night, but YES Network was a winner with the Nielsens.

The Nov. 20 telecast, beginning at 10 p.m. (ET) averaged 125,000 households and scored a 1.69 rating in the New York DMA, according to Nielsen data. That made the game – a 95-90 loss to Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers-- the most-watched Nets’ regular-season contest on YES in almost seven years, behind the team’s Feb. 1, 2006 matchup with LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers that garnered 134,000 homes and a 1.82 DMA rating.

Tuesday night’s telecast stands as the third-highest-rated Nets telecast everon YES – the Feb. 29, 2004 game against the Lakers still leads the way with 139,000 homes and a 1.89 rating.