Stephen A. Smith Saved NBA Countdown After Mike Greenberg Had No Clue They Were Live

ESPN debuted their new installment of NBA Countdown Wednesday night and the basketball show tipped off with a cringeworthy, but must-see blunder.

As ESPN looked to preview their matchup between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, the show was unknowingly live from Madison Square Garden for nearly 30 seconds. After a painfully long amount of dead air, Stephen A. Smith alerted host Mike Greenberg, “we still here, Greeny, we still here — we’re live! We’re live! Go ahead!”

“Are we still on?” Greeny said as he turned toward the camera with a look of shock. “I was under the impression we had broken.”

Lucky for ESPN, the miscommunication just led to some awkward silence, and nothing that would be deemed unfit for television. But the gaffe was still a strange start to the new tenure of NBA Countdown.

Featuring Greeny, Smith, Michael Wilbon and Jalen Rose, the new cast of NBA Countdown is ESPN’s latest attempt at building something to compete with TNT’s highly successful Inside the NBA. While Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaq make up the best studio show in sports, NBA Countdown is constantly retooling in search of a similarly successful grouping of personalities.

Part of Inside the NBA’s charm is their ability to make lemonade out of lemons, turning mistakes into entertaining content. ESPN’s Countdown sprinted back to their script as fast as they could following Wednesday night’s miscommunication.

Watch above via ESPN

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