Look, I didn’t expect ESPN to provide wall to wall coverage of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Game 5 victory over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. And I’d be lying if I said I did anything more than check the final score of the Milwaukee Bucks’ win over the Indiana Pacers in their own Game 5.
But while I fully anticipated the New York Knicks’ collapse against the Philadelphia 76ers would dominate ESPN’s airwaves on Wednesday morning, I figured the Cavs and Bucks’ postseason wins would at least be mentioned. Maybe not even as a full segment or debate topic. But at a minimum the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” — which is currently the NBA’s top media partner — would at least acknowledge that two non-Knicks/Sixers NBA postseason games took place on Tuesday night and what their outcomes were.
Right?
But if you tuned into ESPN’s morning block of Get Up and First Take on Wednesday morning without any prior knowledge of the NBA’s postseason schedule, you likely would have assumed that Game 5 between the Knicks and Sixers was the only playoff game played the prior night. Over the course of the four-hour block, neither show discussed either the Cavs vs. Magic or Bucks vs. Pacers games, with the only mentions of either coming indirectly.
Predictably, both shows led with the Knicks’ heartbreaking defeat to the 76ers, which saw New York blow a six-point lead with less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation. But after exclusively covering Knicks-Sixers throughout the first 45 minutes of the show — which included Mike Greenberg repeatedly suggesting that Tyrese Maxey could become the new face of the NBA — the the 8 a.m. hour of Get Up proceeded with a segment in which NFL analysts Louis Riddick and Jeff Darlington answered questions such as “can the Bears win the NFC North with Caleb Williams in 2024?” and “can Xavier Worthy fill Tyreek Hill’s shoes with the Chiefs?”
(The Chiefs have won two Super Bowls since trading Hill to the Miami Dolphins in 2022. But alas.)
The 9 a.m. hour of Get Up was more of the same, although the show only spent its first 20 minutes discussing Knicks-Sixers before getting back to questions about the 2024 NFL season, which is more than four months away. The first reference to either of the other two NBA playoff games that were played on Tuesday night came at 9:55 a.m. ET, when Brian Windhorst noted that the Cavs and Magic series will likely go seven games in reference to a question regarding Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis’ calf injury.
Windhorst with the first mention of Cavs-Magic at 9:55 ET (in reference to what Porzingis' injury means for the Celtics).
— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) May 1, 2024
First Take was predictably also Knicks-Sixers centric, with much of the focus on Stephen A. Smith’s reaction to his favorite basketball team’s collapse. Over the course of the show’s two hours, it did manage to tackle other topics, including Kevin Durant’s future in Phoenix and the age old question of “how do baseball players get injured?” But like Get Up, First Take made only a single indirect reference to a non-Knicks/Sixers playoff game, which again came during a discussion about Porzingis’ injury.
For what it’s worth, both the Cavs-Magic and Bucks-Pacers games were covered during the 7 a.m. ET SportsCenter and again, I don’t think anyone expected either game to be covered extensively on Get Up or First Take. Still, considering that network is the NBA’s top media partner, it was somewhat jarring to see Awful Announcing have more coverage of an NBA Playoff game — which happened to be pretty exciting — than ESPN’s morning block did.
