Miami fought back to win Game Two in their arena and, as mentioned yesterday, the odds on this series essentially return to what they were at the start: Miami 56% and New York 44%. There really is no clear favorite in this brutal series.
In the other game on Friday, Seattle blew a solid lead at home in the fourth quarter to the gamey Rockets. With about five minutes to go and the Sonics up 89-82, the collapse began. Clyde Drexler hit a three pointer from the right side off a pass from Hakeem Olajuwon to cut the Houston deficit from 7 to 4. Seattle came back down court and looked to answer with Shawn Kemp, but he gave it up to Terry Cummings, who drove to the basket, drew a foul on Olajuwon and went to the foul line. It appeared that Seattle had regained momentum, but Cummings missed both shots. The TNT announcers did not make a big deal out of this, but I wrote "KEY" on my scoresheet. From that point on, the only shot that Seattle would make was a left-handed floater by Payton. Houston, on the other hand, scored on three straight possessions, then played Seattle even until Drexler's fade-away from the left side gave Houston the lead with 18 seconds left.
All of a sudden, Seattle's chances for winning the series dropped from 56% to 27%. The phrase is thrown around a lot, but that really was a big shot.