2002 NBA Finals Los Angeles Lakers Championship Video

2002 NBA Finals Los Angeles Lakers Championship Video

Our Price: $49.94
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.77 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

DVD details

DVD Reviews of 2002 NBA Finals Los Angeles Lakers Championship Video

DVD Review: Three Years... No Improvement
Summary: 4 Stars

Most noticeable to those like me who have the other DVD will immediately notice that they have "recycled" some of the bad keyboard music featured before. Also, at barely 60 mins, they are still doing a VHS-to-DVD conversion, which is frustrating considering that you could cram 3, maybe 4 hours of Lakers footage on the DVD format.

The Western Conference Finals vs. Sacramento is the sole reason I bought the DVD. For the third year in a row, the Conference Finals were acknowledged by everyone as the true NBA Finals, yet the people behind this product do a shabby job of covering the finals and focusing instead on the boring NBA Finals vs. New Jersey Nets. I could really do without the wacked-out Nets fans: the psycho guy with the veins bulging out of his neck and face screaming "NO THREE-PEAT TONIGHT LAKERS! NO THREE-PEAT TONIGHT!" or the moron with the red wig and stockings on his arms chanting "N-E-T-S, NETS, NETS, NETS!", or even the sight of that guy who jumps up into the camera wearing that HORRIFIC green sweater. There is about 30 minutes of this nonsense, and I actually sat through it hoping to see something that would make me happy I bought this DVD.

Getting back to the Sacramento series. So much is cut out! First of all, NO MENTION of Kobe Bryant's food poisoning between games 1 and 2. NO MENTION that Shaq is hobbling around after the games from the pain in his foot. The trash talk, one of the highlights of the rivalry, only occurs during one quick scene between Robert Horry and Vlade Divac over the game-winning 3. Those 20 seconds of Robert Horry manage to make the DVD worth buying, though.

Speaking of Horry, one thing I really liked about this DVD that isn't in the other one is that they play the 2 big game-winning Horry shots (against Portland and Sacramento) in real-time as they were broadcast by NBC. What sort of messes this up for me is that they dub the ESPN announcers over the NBC footage, which is annoying because I HATE THE ESPN ANNOUNCERS! It's obvious the guy (sorry, forgot his name) hates the Lakers! Pay attention to the sound bytes and you will notice he is always rooting for the other team. Example, Lakers down big in game 4, and he starts comparing the Kings beating the Lakers to the Michael Jordan Bulls beating the Detroit Pistons way back in the early 90's. The Kings are no Bulls, not in a million years, but they are full of Bull(you-know-what).

Please, if the people who make these DVDs are reading this, try to take advantage of the DVD format. Make the program longer, add better special features (sorry, but Samake Walker and Brian Shaw fishing? ZZZ) and put the emphasis on the Conference Finals, because the Finals, and the East for that matter, are a joke.