• by Wayne Friedman , June 11, 2007

The NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers got off to a less than stellar start--even with the superstars LeBron James and Tim Duncan in attendance.

The game pulled a 3.7 rating/12 share among 18-49 viewers, and 9.2 million total viewers. Total viewers were down 20% from last year's first game, which featured the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks. That series had its own set of stars--Shaquille O'Neal, Dwayne Wade, to name a few.

This year's game on ABC did little to compete with the still-strong reality TV star of this summer, Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance?" It earned a 4.3/13 at 9 p.m., and led all network shows. With a solid 3.0/10 from "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Fox's pair of question-mark shows pulled off another win for the network.

Fox scored a 3.6/12 for the night. ABC was next with a 2.9/10. ABC got no help from its celebrity racecar event "Fast Cars & Superstars: Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race," which earned a sub-speed limit 1.2/4.

CBS still has trouble with Mark Burnett's reality "Pirate Master," which gathered a 1.9/7 at 8 p.m. With the rest of its schedule in reruns, CBS came in at third place for the night at a 2.2/7.

NBC, also in reruns--except for a "Studio 60" original leftover--posted a 1.7/5.

CW's "Smallville" and "Supernatural" repeats took in an average 0.7/2. MyNetworkTV's "Poltergeist III" grabbed a bit more than half of CW's numbers--a 0.4/1.