Alone on the wing with Michael Jordan. The ball in Jordan's hands. The arena humming with expectation. The shot clock ticking. The first jab step about to be launched.

For a 24-year-old kid still feeling his way around the NBA, this place, this moment, used to be the most frightening in sports.

For Sonics swingman Desmond Mason, Sunday was a litmus test.

He was the player on the wing, on Jordan's turf. He was defending a legend. He was a young comic sharing the stage with Billy Crystal; or a new blues musician about to riff with Dr. John.

Mason was 7 years old when Jordan came into the league. He'd tweaked ankles or stretched hamstrings dozens of times trying to imitate some of the splay-legged dunk attempts of Jordan.

Now they were together, in front of 20,000 people, dancing their first roundball pas de deux.

This was his rite of passage. If Mason could make it here, he could make it anywhere.