The Milwaukee Bucks’ California road trip continues tonight with a showdown against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
If you want to watch the game, you better choose a streaming option soon. It starts at 10:00 p.m. ET and will be televised nationally on ESPN. There are also a handful of different ways you can watch a live stream of the game, including some free options.
Sling TV‘s “Sling Orange” package comes with 32 live-TV channels, including ESPN. There’s no free trial (you can find some of those options in the next section), but chances are you’re going to want to watch more NBA throughout the season, and this is by far the cheapest long-term option for watching nationally televised NBA games (it also has TNT and ESPN3, which simulcasts ABC games). It costs just $20 per month for your first month, and then it moves to $40 after that, which is still cheaper than any streaming service with these channels.
If you do plan on trying out Sling for a month, make sure to add in the Paramount+ With SHOWTIME, Starz, AMC+ and MGM+ add-ons. They’re all free for your first month.
There are three ways to watch the Bucks vs Lakers live online for free.
Fubo (“Pro” channel package), YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” plan and up) all include ESPN in their channel lineups. They’re all significantly more expensive than Sling on a monthly basis, but they do each come with a free trial if you’re just trying to watch tonight’s game.
With the Fubo free trial, you’ll be able to watch for free for seven days. YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream will each give you five days before needing to pay.
Looking to watch the game via one of the aforementioned streaming services from outside of the United States? The only way to do that is with a virtual private network (VPN), which hides your IP address/location, letting you access content that is normally restricted to a different country.
We recommend NordVPN for its reliability, speed and sheer number of services. It works with all of the above streaming services, and if you decide to change your mind within 30 days of signing up, you’ll get your money back. If you want some other options, we’ve put together a rundown of the best VPN services right now.
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.