The Shot Finally Falls: Houston Provides Unlikely Game-Winner

The shot fell.

Allan Houston flipped a lunging, one-handed runner that carried the fate of two teams and two seasons in its precarious arc. As the shot caromed high off the front of the rim, 15,000 pairs of eyes in Miami Arena watched it hang like an omen above the basket.

Houston was missing in action all afternoon. With just 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting to that point, he had done an admirable job of wiping away all positive memories of his 30-point effort in the Knicks' Game 5 clincher one year previous.

An 86 percent free-throw shooter, he had even managed to shank an attempt earlier in the game. With his shaved head, he looked like a relic from playoff losses past, when the Knicks, in a New York rite of spring, would buzz-cut their locks as a gesture of the oft-discussed intangible "team unity."

It was a poignant anachronism, an unwanted reminder of a decade of futility and frustration.

Houston hears a consistent stream of voices--in the New York dailies and on its talk radio programs--which call for him to become the superstar his multimillion-dollar contract demands. Patrick Ewing is past his prime, they whisper. Houston is the Knick of the future.

With a make, Houston would join the pantheon of Big Apple post-season heroes, from Bucky Dent to Stephane Matteau. With a miss, he would join the ghost of Charles Smith in the graveyard of unfulfilled hoop dreams.

"I got a friendly bounce from up above," Houston said.

I've always suspected God was a Knicks fan. Now I have proof.

The shot fell.

Alonzo Mourning, by all accounts the most deserving MVP candidate in the league, watched Houston's desperation attempt drop downward toward the paint. Mourning blossomed under Pat Riley's tutelage into one of the NBA's finest all-around centers, and almost single-handedly carried the Heat to the best record in the East.

But Mourning had spent this extralong off-season toting around the painful memory of his temper tantrum with Larry Johnson in Game 4 of his 1998 series with the Knicks. After the scuffle, Riley reportedly told his franchise player, "You know, you just cost us the season."

If Houston's shot would only rim out, Mourning would have another round to prove to the pundits and the NBC talking heads that he has mastered his much-maligned rage, that he is no longer an immature punch-thrower, and that he was ready to take up the mantle of the Bulls.

"Regardless of the outcome, I still feel we're a better team than they are," Mourning said.

That and a dollar fifty, `Zo, will buy you a ride on the E train to Madison Square Garden.

The shot fell.

Jeff Van Gundy was simply too worked up to do anything but complain vehemently to the officials about Terry Porter's last-second attempt. Van Gundy can be forgiven his momentary lapse of perspective. The shock of keeping his job may have been too much for him to bear.

And unlike past years, Van Gundy didn't have any ankles to grab or scrums in which to intervene. ESPN pronounced later in the day that he had out-foxed Riley the master for the second straight year. Maybe he was just looking for Dave Checketts in the stands, to gloat, or maybe he was running through defensive looks at Dikembe Mutombo in his mind.

"It's not about me at all. It's always been about the team," Van Gundy said.

And the courtside seat at the Garden can't hurt either.

The shot fell.

Pat Riley ran a well-tanned hand through his well-oiled hair and grimaced. Riley, the winningest coach in NBA play-off history, had been roundly criticized for overplaying his club in the weeks leading up to the post-season. He bagged the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, but at a price too high to pay.

Riley glanced down the court at Van Gundy and sighed. The dwarfish, always poorly-dressed and poorly-coiffed genius had shown him the door for the second straight season. Small consolation: Van Gundy will never make the cover of Esquire.

These Knicks looked nothing like the Knicks Riley molded into a championship contender. Minus Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason, John Starks and their supporting cast of bruisers and head cases, these Knicks looked like a finesse operation.

Riley would now face the nagging, persistent questions of the Miami press. Would he really rebuild his club around Mourning, as he promised? Would that mean the departures of Tim Hardaway, Jamal Mashburn or others? And would he admit to the now-epidemic New York jinx?

"Life in basketball has a lot of suffering in it, and we will suffer this one," Riley said.

Just like the master. Philosophical.

The shot fell.

Unlike countless predecessors in Knicks playoff history, Houston's runner slipped through the twine and gave New York a 78-77 win.

With one lucky bounce, Houston exorcised a decade's worth of playoff bricks. Smith's four missed lay-ups against Chicago, Starks's would-be championship-winner against the Rockets and Ewing's failed runner against Indiana faded into oblivion with one make.

Atlanta waits in the second round, also known as the place where the Knicks' playoff hopes go to die. New York has bowed out ungracefully in the conference semifinals in each of the last four seasons since usurping a trip to the finals from the Jordan-less Bulls in 1994.

The question is, will the shot fall again?