LOS ANGELES -- An hour before practice was scheduled to begin Thursday, Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher stood alone on the Staples Center court, working on his struggling jump shot.

	Derek Fisher drives around Tyrone Hill, and later hit the key 3-pointer that brought a Sixers' rally to a big halt.

Two hours before Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Friday night, Fisher was at it again -- all alone, drilling jumpers from countless spots on the floor.

He said it was personal, his zero-point, zero-rebound effort in Game 1. And Friday he vowed to make amends.

And that's just what Fisher did, drilling what boiled down to be the biggest shot of the game, a 24-foot 3-pointer with 2:09 remaining, to give the Lakers a 92-86 lead over the resilient Philadelphia 76ers, who fell by a final count of 98-89 that left the series tied after two games.

"I had a great, wide-open look at it, the best look I had all night," Fisher said. "So I'm glad I was able to knock it down."

The wide-open look was thanks to the slick-passing Shaquille O'Neal, whom the Sixers had doubled on the play. The instant that Dikembe Mutombo and Eric Snow collapsed on O'Neal, O'Neal fired it to Fisher at the top of the key. Then Fisher's sweet-stroking jumper sealed the victory for Los Angeles.

"You have to pick your poison," Sixers coach Larry Brown said. "That was probably the biggest play of the game. If I was a smart coach, maybe I would have told our guys to foul when (Shaq) got it, but I don't believe in that, you know."

The shot was monumental in that it answered a feverish late-game rally by the Sixers, who used a vicious trapping press to coax the Lakers into eight fourth-quarter turnovers. The pressing Philadelphia defense helped the Sixers cut a 13-point Laker lead to three, until Fisher stepped up and silenced all of the critics from Wednesday.

The same could be said of fellow guard Kobe Bryant, who followed his ugly 15-point performance Wednesday with a game-high 31.

"A couple of guys didn't have a good Game 1. Maybe it was because of the layoff, not really playing that type of energetic ball the last 10 days," center Shaquille O'Neal said. "But I knew tonight would be different. My guards played big, they played pretty big defense and shot the ball well."

Fisher's frantic perimeter defense late in the third quarter sparked the rally that gave the Lakers their 13-point lead. The highlight of the rally was Fisher's steal of a Philadelphia inbounds pass and subsequent fastbreak dunk in the face of Allen Iverson.

"They were doing a lot of ball reversals, so I just kept trying to get into the passing lane," Fisher said. "That time it worked."

Fisher's resurgence could potentially be huge for the Lakers, who need someone to ease the pressure on Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. Heading into Game 1 on Wednesday, that man had been Fisher, who was averaging 13.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists a game in the postseason.

In the Western Conference finals against the San Antonio Spurs, Fisher set an NBA postseason record by making 15 3-pointers in the four-game series. Hence the reason the debacle Wednesday was so shocking.

The fourth-year pro out of Arkansas-Little Rock said he relied on those stellar performances to maintain a positive attitude the past two days.

"Since I've come back (from injury), I've had a lot more positive games than negative ones," Fisher said. "So I relied on those games to keep my confidence. I didn't feel like I had really played that bad. I just didn't provide the energy and spark that I like to have."

Early on Friday, it looked like Fisher would have a repeat performance of Game 1, as he missed three of his first four attempts, one of which was an easy layup. As the game wore on, though, that spark returned.

"He played really hard," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "He was aggressive and that was good to see. In the fourth quarter, he started hitting his shots and that helped him feel a lot better."

None of which was bigger than his fourth-quarter 3-pointer, which just might have awakened a sleeping giant.

After all, it's personal.

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com.