On May 21, the Trail Blazers once again arrived in Houston, ready to begin their sixth game, which was a do-or-die battle.
Compared to 1977, the situation had flipped: back then, the Trail Blazers were down 0:2 and pulled off a major comeback, clinching victory in Game 6 on their home court.
Now, it seemed like poetic justice that the Trail Blazers, once leading 2:0, were pushed to the brink by the Rockets. A mix of luck played a part, but the key to the Rockets' turnaround was the tight defensive coordination of the Twin Towers and the brilliant strategic arrangements by Bill Fitch.
For the Trail Blazers, the good news was that they had lost the three games by a total of only 7 points.
This indicated there was no absolute power gap, but more a matter of tactical suppression and a lack of some luck.
And luck tends to be a conserved entity; it doesn't stay good or bad forever, and a seven-game series tends to return to a state of equilibrium.