Parts Go Missing, Team Rolls On

Eddie Jordan wore the same face yesterday he has all season. Whether Larry Hughes broke a thumb or Antawn Jamison's right knee flared up -- or Kwame Brown kissed his Wizards career goodbye -- the coach of the most accomplished Washington pro basketball team in nearly two decades brushed misfortune away with a half-smile.

"Kwame's situation is over with," Jordan said.

There is another postseason affair tonight, a pendulum-swaying Game 5 in Chicago against the suddenly staggered Bulls. Brown, out for the playoffs and on his way out of town, was one of the few big men who played well at United Center during the Wizards' two losses.

What to do? Move on. It's what the Wizards and their unbothered, even-keel coach have done all season.

Will Brown be missed on the floor? Maybe in a year or two, when he grows into an adult and a consistent post player. But today, he is only an enigmatic bench player who missed 40 games with a broken right foot. He is merely another player whom Jordan will fill a hole for in his growing cut-and-paste mosaic of a roster.

Jordan has used 16 starting lineups this season. Tonight's starters in Chicago -- Gilbert Arenas, Hughes, Jamison, Jared Jeffries and Brendan Haywood -- started only 33 regular season games together. Hughes, Jamison and Arenas missed a combined 37 games, 20 of which came after Hughes fractured his right thumb in mid-January.

Like Juan Dixon missing 9 of 10 shots one night and erupting for a career-high 35 two days later to knot the Eastern Conference first-round series at two apiece, the Wizards persevere and go forward. Through injury. Through suspension. Through the loss of a player once considered part of the franchise's foundation.

One of the more telling statistics on the resilience of this team is that the Wizards have managed to win four straight after each of their last two losing streaks of four losses or more. They don't merely halt skids; they abolish them.

"I've been an underdog all my life," Dixon said yesterday after the team practiced at MCI Center. "This team has a lot of that. Nobody gave us a shot early in the season. And a lot of people thought we were done after the first two games in Chicago. They don't know; we're a strong team. We've been through a lot."

Brown's absence would be felt more if Haywood, Jeffries, Etan Thomas and Michael Ruffin had not exerted their post presence on both ends of the court in Games 3 and 4.

"We were very aggressive at home, offensive rebounding, hitting 'em first," Jamison said. "We just sat down and said, 'In order for us to win the series, we need our bigs to really step up and make a difference.' I think those guys got really fed up. . . . Etan and Michael Ruffin are probably the most physical guys on the team. When they got outplayed, [in Chicago], they took it to heart."

Understating the importance of home-court advantage in this series borders on almost foolish. The Wizards had no clue what to do when more than 20,000 stood and roared for their destruction last week in Chicago. United Center was as loud as it was in 1998, Chicago's last championship run, and the Bulls were inspired by that crowd.