Rodney McCray passes to Ralph Sampson who, with his back to the basket and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar defending, caught the ball in mid-air, spun and blindly lofted the ball towards the basket where it hit the front of the rim, hung tantalizingly in the air, drifted down, glanced off the back rim and tumbled through the hoop as time expired, propelling the Rockets into the NBA Finals and ending the Lakers four-year run of Western Conference dominance.