ESPN: The East Coast Leader in Bias?

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I never thought that ESPN could surprise me again. 

It's no secret to any sports fan with a pulse that the Worldwide Leader in pro football, baseball, and basketball has a bias towards the East Coast.  It's more of a joke at this point.
 
Ever hear of the Eastern Seaboard Promotional Network?  How about Every Sports Personality in New England?  These are fairly common references to the sports media giant in places outside of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
 
Yet somehow, I still managed to be shocked and dismayed by their treatment of Game 5 between the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics.
 
Sure, I knew that ESPN would talk about how clutch the Celtic's Paul Pierce was and how great his team mate, Rajon Rondo played.  Pierce was fantastic in the game's waning minutes and Rondo has definitely emerged as a star in this series.
 
I also noticed how the articles summarized the game as a local announcer would in recapping their team's performance.  It was cheerleading, but it was also to be expected.

However, when I read through the various articles on ESPN.com, I couldn't help but notice a lack in coverage of the final moments in the game.

You know, the part where Rajon Rondo essentially punched and clotheslined Bulls center Brad Miller as he went in for a layup with only a few seconds left in overtime.  This WWE werestling move drew copious amounts of blood, which Miller proceeded to leak into a towel after the play, no steel chair or bar wire cage necessary.  
 
This was also the part where the referees essentially took the game away from the Bulls by not giving Rondo a flagrant foul for not even remotely attempting to go for the ball.
 
Let's see now:  Smacking someone in the face, drawing a LOT of blood, not going for the ball, bringing the player to the ground...yes, that sounds like a flagrant foul to me.
 
Now I probably should've prefaced this column by stating that I don't really have much of a stake in the Bulls.  I'm a Chicago sports fan, but I haven't really cared about the Bulls since the Championship years.  Call me a bandwagon jumper or a homer, but this series has rekindled a small amount of interest in my once beloved team.
 
Still, I'm not really concerned about the loss.  I'm not even that mad about the WAY in which the Bulls lost.  I could say that if the foul had been ruled flagrant, Miller (an 82 percent free throw shooter during the regular season) might have made the second shot and the Bulls would've had the ball and a chance to win with two seconds left.
 
But that's not exactly a nagging question mark in my mind.  Miller looked so dazed at the free throw line that he could easily have missed both shots unintentionally (as opposed to intentionally missing the second shot, which he had to do in order to try and get the ball back).  
 
Unfortunately for Bulls fans, the game wasn't won or lost on that one shot.  Del Negro's substitutions and timeout usage were mediocre at best.  More Tyrus Thomas, less Brad Miller please.  Ben Gordon's shot selection and, more importantly, his continued desire to fire up shots while he was stone cold doomed the Bulls down the stretch. 
 
I don't mind all of that though, or even the fact that the referees blatantly blew the call when it counted.  Tim Donaghy jokes aside, the refs simply got that one wrong.

It happens.
 
What bothers me was the fact that when I woke up this morning, finished my two-and-a-half-hour commute to the office and checked ESPN.com for coverage of the game, I found articles plastered all over their website about what a great performance it was by the Celtics without mentioning anything regarding the Miller foul and how in a game that was so close, as every game has been between these two teams, that call, in that moment, cost the Bulls the game.

Furthermore, the main page article actually seemed as though it was written by a Celtics fan, FOR Celtics fans. 
 
Even the title of this front-page:  "Truth Hurts...So Good," smacks of a nod to how the Celtics got away with one.  Yes, Paul Pierce is nicknamed "The Truth."  But the oh-so-clever double meaning here doesn't come from Pierce's shooting ability or John Salmon's wounded pride at allowing such clutch scoring by the Celtics star.
 

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