It was a kind of deathwatch. The NBA calls it "elimination" when a team falls out of playoff contention for good, but it was more a liquidation for the Washington Wizards -- the life of Michael Jordan's playing career down to four April nights, the bitterness and recriminations around the team now palpable. Back in Washington, Wizards owner Abe Pollin was quietly contemplating an elimination of his own making. But the players knew nothing of that. They knew only that they had a few hours before they would be officially eliminated.

Jordan sank deep into a folding chair in a cramped visitors locker room in Miami, his eyes occluded behind designer shades with charcoal lenses. On this, the last night that one of his teams would ever be alive for a playoff spot, Michael Jordan took refuge behind a pair of big silver headphones. Stevie Wonder leaked out of them, muted and scratchy-sounding.

The sight of Jordan with the headphones on had the intended effect: It kept people away -- the media, certainly, but his coach and most of his teammates, too, who knew not to approach him in this period before a game unless a matter couldn't wait. Now and then, feeling a stare or sensing footsteps getting closer, he adjusted the headphones tighter over his ears, getting deeper into his cocoon. Mostly, he watched videotape of the opponent that evening, another failed NBA team, the Miami Heat. Now and then, he just stared clear through everyone, like a man looking out on an ocean.

Across from him, staying away, Miami reporters mingled among players they didn't necessarily know, discreetly asking for names: There was Larry Hughes, sitting in front of a locker alongside Kwame Brown, who plopped into a chair next to Tyronn Lue, who was down a row from Charles Oakley and Bryon Russell, who sat across from, in order, Jerry Stackhouse, Juan Dixon, Brendan Haywood and Bobby Simmons. Jordan, who had the locker closest to the television, sat next to no one.