NBA PLAYOFFS : Being in a Foul Mood Nothing New to Magic : Pro basketball: Orlando was last in free-throw shooting, but now it really hurts after Game 1 loss to Houston.

Nick Anderson, the most tragic Magic, continued to face the music Thursday. It was a funeral march.

The Rockets lead the NBA finals, 1-0, because he failed to make even one of four free throws in the last 10.5 seconds of regulation the night before, providing enough of an opening for Houston to force overtime and then win.

Frankly, he choked.

“Maybe I did,” Anderson said. “I’m not afraid to say in that situation that I didn’t pull through.”

Any consolation heading into Game 2 here tonight lies in the fact that there’s a lot of that going around in the Orlando Magic’s kingdom, home to a dominating center, a prototype power forward who rebounds and defends, a brilliant point guard . . . and a lot of players who can’t make free throws.

None of the other 26 NBA teams are worse from the line than Orlando, at 66.9% even way behind the next-closest club, Portland. No individual with enough qualifying attempts finished in the top 30.

It made a difference. The Magic lost eight games by two points or fewer in the regular season.

But the victories rolled in, so they didn’t worry too much about it. Given greater attention when the playoffs arrived, once it became apparent that the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls would foul Shaquille O’Neal at the first sign of a drop step, the Magic still wasn’t convinced it was a major problem.

“They said that’s the reason we wouldn’t make it in the playoffs,” said Buzz Braman, the team’s shooting coach as a part-time employee. “Meanwhile, Shaq’s free-throw shooting is what beat Boston and Chicago and the first three or four games against Indiana. The Hack-a-Shaq thing was the reason we weren’t supposed to be able to do it. That went out the window when he makes free throws, which he has been doing. We’ve had 18 playoff games. He has shot poorly in three.

“Our free-throw problem, as it’s noted, is really directed at Shaq since he shoots probably 70% of our free throws. The rest of our team shoots 74%, so I wouldn’t call that a free-throw shooting problem.”

It was in the final 10.5 seconds Wednesday.

Now the Magic is trying to become the first team to win the championship after finishing last in free-throw shooting since the Lakers of 1981-82. O’Neal is at 57.5% for the playoffs, brutal for anyone else, but an improvement on his 53.3% during the regular season. Anfernee Hardaway has shot 72.5%, Anderson even worse at 70.2%.

Come the finals opener, Dennis Scott, Horace Grant and Hardaway combined to go seven of seven and O’Neal was six of nine. Good news for the Magic. Then it came down to Anderson, when the shots mattered most.

“We haven’t been shooting free throws well all season long and, really, all playoffs long,” Grant said Thursday. “But we made it to the championship [despite] shooting a poor percentage. The free-throw shooting didn’t lose the game for us. There was just other little intangibles we didn’t do out there, like put a hand up on the guys who were shooting the three-pointers.”

Added Magic Coach Brian Hill: “If you’re going to isolate it because it’s four free throws in the last 10 seconds of regulation, I understand that. But there were 48 minutes in that game where we may not have had to be in that situation.”

Any attempt to take the blame off Anderson failed. The Magic, and Rockets, know one make ends the game.

With O’Neal, something like this might be expected.

But Anderson? He’s one of the top outside shooting threats on the team and was in the process of getting 22 points and 11 rebounds while playing 50 minutes and chasing down his man, Clyde Drexler, with varying results.

“Same situation, same guy on the line, Nick will make ‘em,” Grant said. “No question. I guess it was just one of those things that happened and he didn’t make them.”