Celtics Championship DVD Review: Bonus Features

Here's Leon and Perk at the DVD signing I attended in Boston. Just thought I'd throw that picture up as I delve into the Bonus Features. (Leon arrived in a white limo btw.)



Kevin Garnett - First All-Star Game: This was a great look back to 1997. There's footage of a wide-eyed KG watching the dunk contest and the three point shootout. You can tell he's so happy to be there as it was just his second year in the league. And for those of you who were wondering, Glen Rice was the MVP that year. Fun fact!




Paul Pierce Helicopter Ride: Sounds kinda weird right? This is literally Paul Pierce riding in a helicopter over Los Angeles. He points out where his high school was and talks about a date gone wrong. Fun stuff that they had in the can somewhere from 2002. Pierce really comes off as a likeable dude. Of course, I don't think Laker fans (and I guess every other team's fans) are thinking the same thing after Pierce recently claimed that he's the best player in the league because he won the Finals MVP.




Robert Parish on the new Big 3: Insightful look into the views of a former Celtic great. Comparing himself, Bird and McHale to what the new guys need to do, Parish said, "Nobody allowed egos or personal goals to get in the way." He also said that the new Big 3, "wouldn't have worked early on in their careers." which again reinforces the point that this truly was a special team because of the timing. Bird and McHale probably didn't want to be interviewed since they are working for other teams currently (even though Kevin had a HUGE hand in this roster forming). Always good to hear from The Chief though. Now I just need to get those images of him in a Hornets and a Bulls jersey out of my head.




I am a Celtic: Best feature on the DVD. John Havlicek, Sam Jones and Bob Cousy basically teach a history class about the franchise. We're talking the good (basically everything from the fifties to 1986) the bad (the Len Bias and Reggie Lewis tragedies even though they didn't mention Lewis by name which was weird) and the ugly (not getting the number one pick in the lottery which was turned into Tim Duncan and years of mediocrity). The Big 3 press conference is shown and the three legends talk about how the current team has the right balance of talent, youth and experience to succeed. Some great stuff but it could have been longer. This is where Tommy Heinsohn's presence was sorely missed. They also re-used some footage from the main feature which was kind of lame. There was a great bit where at a practice from this past season where the team is running sprints. Doc runs with them and says he won't finish in last. He does the Gordy Lechance fake out/head start deal and I'm pretty sure he beats Scot Pollard. Good stuff.




Bill Russell/Kevin Garnett conversation: This was shown during the playoffs. It struck me as odd how close Russell seemed to feel to Garnett comparing him to his kids and whatnot. He just joined the team this year. Maybe they had meetings in the past but it was clear that Russell had been following KG's career from afar and was stoked that Garnett was finally wearing the white and green. You don't see stuff like this too often.




Inside the mind of Kevin Garnett: Let's get one thing straight. This dude is crazy. I kind of already knew that from watching him play but this is some next level stuff. The segment is only a couple of minutes long (if that) and it's basically him talking about how he feels when he is on the court. He talks about grass and water and other freaky imagery. I don't ever want to be inside his mind or anywhere in the vicinity. Let's move on...




Danny Ainge - Building a Championship: The Sonics franchise knew they were moving and didn't want to pay Ray Allen and Kevin McHale is a dope of a GM. Then other dudes wanted to play on a team with Pierce, Jesus and KG. That's how he did it. There is a small Tommy clip in this piece. Ainge also talks about how great Wyc Grosbeck and the other owners are and how supportive they've been.




Ray Allen - NBA Cares: When I saw this on the back of the DVD case I figured it would show Allen going to the school and reading to the little kids that you saw in all the commercials. Well guess what. It was JUST THE DAMN COMMERCIAL! What the hell is the point of putting that on? I actually laughed. But after watching the feature and watching all the bonus features, one thing was readily apparent:



The NBA was going to make a Celtics DVD regardless if they won the Finals or not. All of the interviews and all the footage was filmed during the season. The I am a Celtic feature particularly pointed this out because Cousy and Co. kept talking about how it would be great if this years team won it all. The Garnett first All Star game and the Pierce helicopter ride had been in the can for years. This is what I was talking about in the first post. There is definitely some quality stuff here but it was evident that the NBA didn't go the extra mile. Hell, they didn't even go the extra foot. There was also another glaring omission and it was something that they could have filmed during the year. Who else wasn't on the DVD?

This guy! A two minute piece is honestly all it would have taken. If you don't know who this is, go to youtube right now. C'mon NBA!

The entire fourth quarter of Game 7 vs. Cleveland and the entire fourth quarter of Game 6 vs. Detroit round out the bonus features. You know what it's like watching a tv show like Lost or 24 live, then later watching them without any commercials? Yeah, imagine that but a basketball game. Do you know how many damn time outs and stoppages of play there are in an average fourth quarter of an NBA game, nevermind the playoffs? Already knowing the outcome sort of diminishes the overall impact but it was still damn fun to watch, especially the Pierce/Lebron showdown.

So again, there's good stuff on here but that's only because it was such a great story and the franchise has so much history. The NBA dropped the ball on this but it's still worth watching/owning. And for now, it will have to hold me over along with the Olympics until the regular season starts.

Celtics Championship DVD Review

Okay, I know how these things work. The NBA (and the other leagues) churns out a fluff piece about a month after the Finals are over for fans of the team that won. It's essentially just a recap of the season's highlights and then a little more in depth look at the playoffs. But since it was the Boston Celtics, with arguably the most storied history in all of basketball, and since three players had never really come together like this on one team, I was hoping for bit more than the run of the mill DVD. Three players who were multiple time All-Stars, were all the same age (roughly) in their early 30s, but had no championship rings to show for their efforts. Plus, you know...Leon Powe is on the team! Well, to the NBA's credit, they did appear to take some steps in the right direction, especially with a few of the bonus features, but it still felt a little flat to me overall. Maybe it's because all of this was still so fresh in my mind. Who knows, maybe watching it a few years from now will make me appreciate it a little more.


The main feature was roughly an hour long. It started with a montage of Boston players from years gone by in a segment called, "What it means to be a Boston Celtic." That was definitely a good way to kick things off to pay tribute to all the great players that roamed the floor at the Boston Garden. There was so much success for one franchise up until the late 1980s. Then the feature takes a complete 180 and shows the infamous Rick Pitino speech. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ICdXAmd1TWA) That short outburst epitomized why he failed in the NBA. What a pompous ass. The feature switches gears again by going from a hated part of Boston's past, to their most loved. Red Auerbach died before the start of the 2006-2007 season. I was actually at opening night that year. He was involved in all previous 16 championships and to have him not there was really odd. (To put this into perspective, the team I root for just played their 20th season. The Celtics have 17 championships. That's crazy.) Red's passing was surely an omen because the DVD then touches on those next, awful 82 games. An 18 game losing streak capped off one of the worst seasons in Celtic history.


But then Danny Ainge brought Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett into the fold to join a justifiably frustrated Paul Pierce. The "New Big Three" they were called. The feature then goes on to detail the team's preseason trip to Italy. We see just how big this trip was for everyone on the team to bond. The trip was also where Doc, searching for some kind of motto or phrase to bring to the team together, came across the word, "Ubuntu".


"You live Ubuntu." Doc says.


The word (very loosely translating into togetherness/selflessness) was said by the whole team before running through the tunnel before every game. It was also demonstrated on the court when Ray Allen got the extra pass twice and nailed buzzer beaters versus Toronto and Charlotte. The team is shown celebrating (the Raptors game was only the second or third of the season) and you could see the beginnings of a team that would go on to win 66 games. The focus then shifts to Perk and Rondo as the two men who completed the starting five and ended up growing by leaps and bounds this season. Posey and Leon were then featured briefly as role players who do a little bit of everything - both with great D, Powe dominating on the glass and Posey's outside shot.

We are then treated to the All Star break. The Big 3, Doc and Rondo all took part in the weekend. Not too much coverage here which was a little disappointing. They did show Garnett rooting for Rondo in the rookie/sophomore game though. It was at this point that I noticed Tommy Heinson and Mike Gorman were no where to be found on the dvd thus far. Pretty odd considering they were the tv announce crew in addition to the fact that Tommy was very successful in his playing/coaching days with the Celtics. In fact, I only recall seeing Tommy once and it was on one of the Bonus Features. For all the live action footage (mostly in the playoffs, more on that in a sec) they cut between Grandy and Maxwell (the radio broadcasters) and the Breen/Van Gundy/Jackson crew. Maybe has something to do with with tv channel the Celtics are broadcasted on. Also, does anyone actually listen to sports radio broadcasts besides when they're in their car? Baseball might be the exception because a lot of people grew up listening to radio broadcasts and prefer it to television. (Especially when a certain former Reds second baseman is on...)

Anyway the feature coasts a bit touching on the additions of Cassell and PJ Brown and focus on how the Celtics just had the biggest single season turnaround in NBA history. They did show a "candid" conversation with Doc and Garnett during a practice. They were disagreeing on how early Doc took him out of a particular game. It was light, but in the end, Doc said, "I know I'm right, that's why I did it." and they both chuckled but the point definitely got across. Now when I started this blog before the Finals, I was very critical of Doc's coaching ability. While it is clear he isn't much of an X's and O's guy, he is a player's coach. He's still young enough that he can relate to his guys but old enough that they listen and respect him. He also doesn't appear to talk down to them at all.

Playoffs: This was the best section of the feature part of the DVD. There were some great quotes both during timeouts and recorded later. After Game 2 of the Atlanta series, Leon said, "We looked unstoppable" but had that look on his face of a guy whose team almost got upset by an eight seed. Going into Game 6 versus Detroit, PJ Brown said, "Pierce and Garnett said we are not goin' back home" which would have been their third straight seven game series. They covered the teams inability to win at home but stayed away from how mightily Ray Allen struggled.

Then came the finals versus the Lakers. The "Beat LA" campaign is shown in full swing. A few of the guys talk about how it felt being the underdog. I remember on espn.com's Finals page, only 1 of the 8 "experts" picked the Celtics to win. (I believe it was Tim Legler.) I was at the Garden for Game 1 and it was interesting to see how the broadcast managed to capture the insanity in the building. I never thought in a million years that Paul Pierce would come back out on the floor after he hurt his knee. It's been debated about how severe the injury was if an injury even existed. Whatever. If a guy isn't hurt, he's not going to go back to the locker room just to come back and give his team a boost when he could have been playing that whole time. The Leon Powe Game was next and Doc almost redeems himself by saying during a timeout, "Tell everyone to look for Leon, he has Luke Walton guarding him." They show a few of his dunks but that was pretty much it for Leon for the rest of the dvd. I thought it would have been nice to put the feature ABC did on him during halftime that game on as a bonus feature, but it was not included. So it goes.

Raise your hand if you can't guard Leon...

After the Celtics almost won Game Three, we get a look at their practice the next day. Some of the guys were definitely looking a little spent but were still going full speed. It paid off because they somehow managed to engineer the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. During all of the Finals coverage, the feature gives a fair shake to the Lakers even though they pretty much sucked. Kobe was definitely made to look like a superstar as all of his great plays were highlighted and none of his faults were touched on.

Another thing I noticed is that Garnett and Eddie House talk in the huddle...a lot. And they have very constructive things to add too, it's not just lame stuff like, "Hey, let's play our game." Celtics fans watching this should be breathing a sigh of relief that House resigned with the team. The Game six blowout was fun to rewatch as this time, my head was...a little clearer let's say. And while they show the celebration on the court and in the lockerroom afterwards, there was no addition coverage of the team's parade through Boston a few days later. I know the parade didn't make any stops and no speeches were given like many other teams like to do but I don't think it would have killed the NBA to send a couple of cameras.

Lastly, during the credits they showed a funny post game press conference from a game during the season with KG and Pierce. Garnett talks about how they took a class on how the handle press conferences and how to avoid saying, "you know" and "like" all the time. The two then start busting on each other on who says "you know" more. Garnett answers a question and Pierce keeps butting in with "you know". Then Pierce answers a question and KG counts on his fingers how many times Pierce says it. It reminded me of when comedies play the gag reel at the end of the movie. It was a nice touch.

Overall the feature served its purpose in retelling the season and using the dramatic music in the right places. I could have used a little more player interviews weaved in throughout, but the editing was smooth and the highlights that were chosen fit the overall narrative. I'll touch briefly on the special features in an upcoming post as I didn't count on writing so much about the feature. I would say that the dvd was good enough that every Celtic fan should pick it up, but I really don't think anyone needs my endorsement. It was their first championship in 22 years.