All Rise...

Judge David Johnson used to be called The Diesel in high school. He considered filing suit against Shaquille O'Neal for copyright infringement but doesn't want to have his arms ripped out of his sockets and stuffed down his pants. The guy's like a thousand pounds.

The Charge

The Knicks suck.

The Case

Following the Golden Age of New York Knicks basketball—the vicious New York/Miami wars of the mid to late-90s, culminating the improbably 1999 run to the championship—I lost touch with the NBA and only stayed connected to it through minimal web-surfing. Then the 2006 NBA Playoffs happened, and it was some of the finest pro ball I had ever seen, and I was glued until the end: where the once-hated Heat schooled the heavily favored Dallas Mavericks.

Those guys defied all expectations, starting sluggish against the upstart Chicago "Baby" Bulls, prompting lots of talking heads to write them off. But they persevered, knocking out the Bulls, Nets and Pistons, before taking it to Dallas. This DVD chronicles the team's march to the championship. A one hour program is buttressed by loads of bonus material, including individual player spotlights, training camp footage, analysis, and the final quarter from the Finals clincher.

The end result is a satisfyingly hefty tribute to the team and its accomplishments, which even I, as someone who used to include Heat losses regularly in my nighttime prayer routine, grew to appreciate. The main feature is a nifty nutshell of the season, and, really, the team in general. Tracking the team's roots as a sucky expansion squad, then to its resurgence under the stewardship of Pat Riley, to those wars with New York, and finally to its current state with Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade.

D-Wade. That guy is just awesome. Wade is one of the main reasons I got into the playoffs so much, and especially The Finals. I've heard a lot of Michael Jordan comparisons, with pundits christening everyone from Harold Miner to Kobe Bryant as the second coming of His Airness. And despite Bryant's scoring acumen and the otherworldly talent of Lebron James, I think Wade is the closest I've seen to MJ. This guy makes it look so easy, and he absolutely took over in the clutch. He had that kind of invulnerability that Jordan possessed, the on-court chutzpah that just screamed "You will not defeat me." But I digress. The dude is awesome and gets plenty of love on this disc and that's great and I'll leave it at that.

This season overview is only half the content. In the extras bin resides a trove of bonus materials that should satiate all manner of Heat fan. Here's the lineup:

• Dwyane Wade: Flash
• Gary Payton: Career Retrospective
• Udonis Haslem: Exceeding Expectations
• Shaq in the Third Stage of his Career
• Alonzo Mourning: Reflections
• 2006 Training Camp Review
• Jason Williams: Growing as a Player
• Dream Catches Fire (Team History Retrospect)
• NBA Playbook: Getting Shaq Space in the Post
• The Clincher
• Finals Pre-Series Analysis
• Finals Post-Series Analysis

There you have it, a complete tribute to the Heat's noteworthy run to the title. If you dig these guys, check this disc out.

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