Oklahoma City Thunder evened the series with the 4th-ranked Houston Rockets

With veteran guard Chris Paul scoring a team-high 28 points, taking over as an assistant coach at time outs, and just running the show, his underdog Oklahoma City Thunder evened the series with the 4th-ranked Houston Rockets at 3-3 apiece with Monday night‘s 104-100 Eastern Conference win.

It was played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena VIsta, Fla., where the other National Basketball Association playoff game brought the Miami Heat a 115-104 surprise win over the Eastern Conference’s No.1-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in game one of the semifinals.

As for Paul, he once again gave his former team, Houston, fits. He scored 18 of his points in the second half, with 11 coming in the fourth quarter when OKC overcame a 96-92 deficit in the final two minutes with a late surge also helped by 6-foot-11 Steven Adams’ game-high 14 rebounds and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander handed out the team-high six assists.

“That’s the way we’ve played all season,” Paul said. “We’ve given away height, speed, and bench strength and survived because we play as a team. Now we play one more game this round and we’re anxious to play it.”

It was a nip-and-tuck game throughout, with the Rockets up by one after the first quarter, ahead by 51-48 at halftime, but the Thunder took a 77-75 lead heading into the final quarter. In that hectic stretch, James Harden hit four 3-pointers, two short jumpers for Houston, while Paul answered back with his team game that was evident in his college years at Wake Forest.

Paul added seven boards and three assists, Harden was good eight rebounds and the game-high seven assists. Teammate P.J. Tucker added the team-high 11 boards. The teams play again Wednesday in the game that decides the semifinal spot against most likely one of the Los Angeles teams, the Lakers or Clippers.

Miami was up to the task. After trailing 40-29 after one quarter, it was behind 63-60 at the intermission before surging ahead 92-86 after three quarters, and then leading scorer, leading player, Jimmy Butler, took over with five-straight baskets, two from outside and three from second efforts inside.

Butler finished with the game-high 40 points. Before the game, he remarked that he was  probably not going to pass the ball much when he had it, and he was true to his words. He took care of the scoring and teammate Ray Adebayo brought down a game-high 17 rebounds to go with six assists.

For the Bucks, Khris Middleton was high scorer with 28 points and best player, Giannis Antetokounmpo, did not have his usual good night although he tossed in 18 points, took down 10 rebounds, and dished out nine assists.

On the Tuesday schedule, It’s the Boston Celtics with a 1-0 lead over the defending champion Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference semis, and in the West, it’s a 3-3 deadlock between the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz in the quarterfinals.