Michael Jordan was simply awesome. His team was simply awful.
Jordan showed he can still dunk, still take over a game, and still score 40-plus. He was the Jordan of old in a five-minute stretch in the third quarter. He scored 41, but his Washington Wizards were helpless without him in Saturday night's 102-95 loss to the New Jersey Nets.

"I'm feeling good, that's the good sign," Jordan said. "The bad sign is that the team's going to have to elevate to stay in tune with what's happening with me."

But there was no doubt that Jordan was back. He played 33 minutes, shot 15-for-24 from the field and 9-for-11 from the line. In the third quarter, he almost single-handedly closed an 18-point deficit to 2. He scored 16 of 20 Wizards points during the stretch, making the first dunk of his comeback and going 6-for-6 with two 3-pointers. He also assisted on one of the other baskets with a no-look pass to Courtney Alexander.

"It's the confidence that I had when I committed to come back to play," Jordan said. "I knew that I could play at that level. I know I could get into that type of rhythm.

"It took a lot of work to get back to this point. I had to shed about 25 pounds. It's like a verification of the hard work that I've done. I don't think that I'm there yet, but I'm on the right road."

Jordan was the only Wizards player to score in double figures, although shooting guard Richard Hamilton missed the game with an elbow injury. The Wizards outscored the Nets by 16 when he was in the game and were outscored by 23 when he was on the bench.

Coach Doug Collins said the other players were "playing in awe," and that Hamilton and Courtney Alexander will both have to play whenever Jordan's not in the game so that there's some sort of scoring threat.