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The Celtics historic comeback over the Lakers lifted ABC to a solid victory over the competition, and gave the Alphabet its eighth consecutive win in adults 18-49 on Thursdays, making it the longest Thursday night winning streak for the network in 16 years.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, game four of the NBA Finals -- 9-11 p.m. for much of the country -- drew a 4.1 rating/12 share in 18-49, 9.9 million viewers overall on ABC, though those numbers will surely rise when the national numbers arrive later Friday afternoon.

At 8 o'clock, a combination of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "NBA Countdown" won the hour for ABC with a 3.0/11, 8.0 million viewers overall. CBS placed second with an hour of Regis Philbin-hosted "Million Dollar Password" (2.0/7, 9.5 million viewers overall). Fox took a significant hit from a week ago, substituting "So You Think You Can Dance" with "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" (1.8/6, 6.1 million viewers overall), a 40% ratings drop.

"Dance" (2.8/8, 7.8 million viewers overall) returned at 9 p.m., finishing in that hour to the basketball game (3.7/11, 9.2 million viewers overall). A repeat of CBS procedural "CSI" (2.2/6, 9.3 million viewers overall) defeated NBC's summer reality skein "Last Comic Standing" (1.8/5, 4.4 million viewers overall).

At 10 p.m., both CBS and NBC saw the second episodes of "Swingtown" and "Fear Itself," respectively, fall from week-one numbers.

"Swingtown" (2.3/7, 7.2 million viewers overall) fell 15% and "Fear Itself" (1.5/4, 4.8 million viewers overall) dropped an even more ominous 25%. Both are up against tough competition in the NBA Finals, however, and, unless there is game seven on Thursday, it will be interesting to see how they do next week when basketball is off the air.

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: ABC, 3.7/12; Fox, 2.3/7; CBS, 2.2/7; NBC, 1.5/5; Univision, 1.5/5; CW, 0.7/2.

In total viewers: ABC, 9.2 million; CBS, 8.7 million; Fox, 7.0 million; NBC, 4.2 million; Univision, 3.5 million; CW, 1.8 million.