NBA FINALS : Rockets Sweep Out the O-Rena : Game 2: Cassell, Olajuwon lead Houston to seventh consecutive playoff road victory, 117-106.

Fantasyland is down the street, so this must be the real thing (continued):

The Houston Rockets on Friday night finished what they started 48 hours earlier, beating the Orlando Magic, 117-106, for a sweep at the O-rena, a 2-0 lead in the NBA finals and a couple of league playoff records for road work. In other words, business as unusual.

“Are we surprised?” Magic guard Brian Shaw said. “I would say so. I don’t think anybody thought that this would happen.”

Maybe not even Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who spent part of the afternoon drilling his team for losing the killer instinct and feeling too good about themselves, as if they were content to go home with a split. He wanted them to think of every possession as a battle and he thought they had happy feet.

So to war they went, bombing the Magic from the start. The Houston lead was 10 points early in the second quarter and, in an exact turnaround from Wednesday, 20 with 4:10 remaining in the first half, 52-32. By intermission, it was a 22-point game.

Challenges would follow, though only in relative terms. The Magic never got closer than nine points the rest of the way, that coming on five different occasions in the fourth quarter.

In the process, the Rockets-as-road-warriors claimed another scalp. This was their seventh consecutive victory away from home, a league playoff record for one year and just one shy of the extended mark of eight in a row set by Chicago in 1991 and ‘92, something to keep in mind should there be a need to return. It was also their ninth victory overall as visitors, establishing another single-season standard.

The latest installments duplicated the Rockets’ start to the last series, when they opened 2-0 at San Antonio in the Western Conference finals. This is a little different, though. Orlando had lost twice at home--in all of the regular season.

Now the Magic has a two-game losing streak at Orlando Arena for the first time since Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, 1994, making the odds against a championship pretty severe. If that isn’t enough, consider that no team has ever gone 0-2 when starting the NBA finals at home and come back to win.

“I’m disappointed, no question about that,” Magic Coach Brian Hill said. “But we have an example right in front of us, from the last series. Houston did the same thing at San Antonio and then lost the next two at home.

“It’s not like it hasn’t been done. This team [Houston] has won seven in a row on the road, and they deserve an awful lot of credit.”

The only difference this time was that the Rockets hopped on the shoulders of the backup point guard. Friday, it was the turn of Sam Cassell, who was rested after playing just 11 minutes in Game 1 as Kenny Smith cut up the Magic’s slow defensive rotations.

Cassell went 30 minutes in Game 2, compared with Smith’s 19 in his usual starting role, and made eight of 12 shots, including four of six three-point shots, en route to 31 points and three steals. That was enough to complement the 34 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks by Hakeem Olajuwon. Also helpful were the 11 points, 10 rebounds and NBA finals-record seven steals by Robert Horry.

Smith said: “[Cassell] said that he had the night off [Wednesday]. He wasn’t going to let me do what I did. He told me that. So he was right.”

And by the way . . .

“He’s not playing in Game 3,” Smith joked.

The night actually started with unfinished business: Rescuing whatever confidence Orlando’s Nick Anderson lost when he missed four consecutive crucial free throws late in Game 1, which came, not coincidentally, with several newspapers renaming him Brick Anderson.

During the layup line, someone in the stands held up a sign that read, “Yell If U Love Nick.” The crowd did. Then he got the loudest ovation during pregame introductions, greater than those for Shaquille O’Neal or Anfernee Hardaway.

It would have been perfect if he hadn’t played the game.

Appearing weighted down by the Game 1 disaster, Anderson made four of 13 shots in 43 minutes, going one of five on three-point attempts, while scoring 11 points. At least, his free-throw shooting improved--he was two of four.

Now, they all go to the Summit for Game 3 on Sunday--the Rockets and the Magic and maybe whatever is left of Anderson--for whatever remains of Houston’s proof of destiny, if that hasn’t already been registered.

“Speaks for itself,” Olajuwon said.