The Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers meet for Game 1 of the 2024 East Finals tonight at TD Garden. It’s the first time in 10 years the Pacers have played in the NBA’s version of the Final Four, while Boston is making its sixth appearance in eight years.
It’s almost game time. The game is scheduled to start very soon, at 8:00 p.m. ET. The main broadcast will be on ESPN, while the “NBA Unplugged with Kevin Hart” alternate broadcast will be on ESPN2. But if you don’t have cable and want to know how to stream the NBA playoffs, we’ve found a handful of different ways you can watch the Pacers vs Celtics Game 1 — and the entire series — live online.
While Sling TV doesn’t offer a free trial (you can check out the next section for some of those options), it tops our list of recommended options due to its cheap long-term price.
The “Sling Orange” channel bundle comes with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3 (which simulcasts the ABC games). That’s every channel you need to watch a live stream of every game of both the East finals and the NBA finals–and it’s currently on sale for just $15 for your first month.
Additionally, if you also want TNT for the West finals, that’s included in the “Sling Blue” channel package, but you can currently get “Sling Orange+Blue” for only $30 for your first month. That’s far, far cheaper than any other live-TV streaming with all of these channels.
If you sign up for Fubo‘s “Pro” channel plan, you’ll get ABC (live in most markets), ESPN and ESPN2, among about 180-plus other live TV channels. It comes with a seven-day free trial, which means you could watch a live stream of Game 1 (today, ESPN), Game 2 (Thursday, ESPN), Game 3 (Saturday, ABC) and Game 4 (Monday, ESPN) and then cancel your subscription without having to pay anything. Just note that Fubo doesn’t come with TNT, so you won’t be able to watch the West finals on there.
Should the series extend longer than that, or if you’re just looking for a different option for tonight’s game, you could then use your free five-day trial of YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and/or DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” plan or above) to watch. They both include ABC (live in most markets), ESPN, ESPN2 and TNT.
If you’re outside the United States, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to watch a live stream of the game. All of the streaming services we just talked about are typically US-only, but a VPN can hide your IP address/location in order to bypass those geographical restrictions, allowing you to watch Sling or whatever other streaming service you want from practically any country outside the US.
NordVPN ranks No. 1 on our guide to the best VPN services thanks to its safety, speed and reputation for working with most streaming service. Though it doesn’t come with a normal free trial (meaning you’ll have to pay when you sign up), it does have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
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.