The Boston Celtics take their six-game winning streak into TD Garden for a matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks tonight. With Boston running away with the East, and Milwaukee starting to click under Doc Rivers, this one could easily be a conference finals preview.
The game is about to start, at 7:30 p.m. ET, and will be televised nationally on ESPN. But if you don’t have cable, there are also plenty of ways you can watch a live stream for free or cheap.
Of the five live-TV streaming services that include ESPN, Sling TV is by far the cheapest long-term option. The “Sling Orange” channel package–which includes ESPN and 31 other total channels–costs just $15 for your first month and then $40 per month after that. Every other streaming service is north of $70 per month.
So, while there’s no free trial, this is an excellent and inexpensive way to watch tonight’s Bucks vs Celtics game–and a whole lot of other basketball down the stretch.
Speaking of which, Sling is an especially strong choice if you’re also wanting to watch March Madness over the next three weeks. Every game will be on TNT, TBS, truTV or CBS. “Sling Orange” will get you TNT and TBS, while the “Entertainment Extra” add-on for just $6 per month has truTV. You can then get Paramount+ with SHOWTIME ($12 per month) for the CBS games.
That’s a total of just $33 for the month, which is the cheapest way to watch the ESPN channels and every NCAA tournament game.
We mentioned the five live-TV streaming services with ESPN, and while Sling may be the cheapest among them, there are three that offer a free trial, allowing you to watch the Bucks vs Celtics at no cost.
Fubo (“Pro” channel plan) will give you seven days for free, while YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” channel plan or above) both come with a five-day free trial.
If you are interested in catching some college basketball while you’re signed up, it’s worth noting that YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream both have every channel you’ll need to watch every tournament game. That means you can watch every Round of 64 (Thursday and Friday) and Round of 32 (Saturday and Sunday) game while on your free five-day trial.
Fubo, unfortunately, does not have any of the Turner-owned channels (TNT, TBS, truTV).
If you’re subscribed to one of those streaming services but are out of the country at the time of the game, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to watch. VPN’s mask your IP address/location, allowing you to stream content from other countries that is normally geo-locked.
NordVPN is easily one of the best VPN services. It has a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can try it out risk-free, but it’s likely something you’ll want to keep long-term anyways.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.