• by Wayne Friedman , June 18, 2010

The Los Angeles Lakers beat their archrival Boston Celtics to win the NBA Championship -- and then beat all ratings for NBA game seven finals for the last 12 years.

The game scored a Nielsen preliminary 18.2 overnight household rating -- the best results since Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to beat the Utah Jazz in game seven in 1998. For the night, ABC took in 18.8 million viewers. During the 10:30 to 11 p.m. hour, the game peaked at nearly 24 million.

The game was the highest-rated NBA Finals game ever on ABC -- besting the Lakers-Pistons in game five in 2005, which earned a 15.5 preliminary household rating.

Among 18-49 viewers, the game took in a 8.5 rating/23 share. That is 57% higher than the prime-time portion of this year's Game 6 on Tuesday.

Through six games, the NBA Finals have been averaging 16,434,000 viewers, the highest six-game averages since the Lakers-Pistons in 2004.

Not surprisingly, ABC easily won the night among both 18-49 and 18-34 viewers, with a 7.5/22 and a 7.5/25, respectively. Fox was way back in second place at 1.9/6 for each of the 18-49 and 18-34 viewer groups.

Very few original programs went against the NBA. Fox's big summer show "So You Think You Can Dance" dropped 15% to a 2.2/6 among 18-49 viewers. NBC's "100 Questions" registered about one-third of the "Dance" numbers at 0.7/2.