Sometime during the third quarter, the All-Star stood at about midcourt with his hands on his hips, the sweat pouring down his face in rivulets, and he shook his head. That's all Michael Jordan did, really, a little shake of the head, the smallest acknowledgment of the crash job occurring around him Thursday.

What can you say? Some nights, the show just doesn't play.

Jordan saw it falling to the floor of Arco Arena, an eventual 109-93 sandblasting by Sacramento that stopped being close late in the second quarter. And to watch him there, taking it in, unable to turn the game the way the Jordan of the different era could utterly turn a game, was to be reminded that nothing stays the same in the NBA, no matter how much you wish it might.