When the Magic beat the Washington Wizards three weeks ago in NBC's season debut, it wasn't even a very good game. The Wizards had no answer for Tracy McGrady, and Michael Jordan was taken out early to rest his aching knees.

The loss dropped the Wizards to 5-11, confirming what Jordan had declared five days earlier: "We stink!" After making schedule revisions to maximize the exposure of Jordan's comeback, the NBA and NBC seemed stuck with the Wizards. Nobody could have envisioned that by the time they would meet again (tonight in Orlando), the Wizards (12-12) would be on a seven-game winning streak and the Magic (13-14) would be reeling.

McGrady, who smothered Jordan in the Magic's 96-87 victory Dec. 1, will miss at least the next two games with a low back strain.

The 38-year-old Jordan has not been the same player he was while earning six championship rings with the Chicago Bulls. His knees are still hurting and he is shooting less than 41 percent. He has made two three-point shots all season.

But he may be just warming up. In what he described as "my best run since early in the season," Jordan made nine straight shots Wednesday night in a 103-76 rout of Atlanta. "I'm feeling my legs are starting to come back and my shot is starting to come on," he said.

The game of basketball's wizard seems to have been dispersed among his Wizard teammates, who are playing several levels above expectations.

"Early on I thought Michael was doing a lot of the playing; now everyone has joined in the fray," observed Magic Coach Doc Rivers. "So Michael already has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish this season, as far as I can see, because now you have Richard Hamilton playing hard, you have Jahidi White and (Brendan) Haywood, everybody's playing hard now and that's absolute from Michael Jordan.

"I don't know if he came back to be a great player, although he is. But I know he came back to teach the young people on his team how to play hard and he's done that."

Perhaps the biggest surprise has been rookie center Brendan Haywood, a 7-footer who was drafted by the Magic. Haywood, who is averaging 8.3 points and 7.4 rebounds, was traded for guard LaRon Profit (since released) and a future draft pick, a transaction that could prove to be embarrassingly one-sided for the Magic.

The current winning streak is Washington's longest in six years. It includes victories at Dallas and Toronto. Jordan has been the Wizards' leading scorer in only three of the seven games, with Hamilton leading in the other four. But numbers are beside the point, according to Washington Coach Doug Collins.

"All the emphasis people want to focus on is what Michael isn't doing," Collins said. "It's hard for people to view what he is doing now because they compare him to what he did in Chicago in a totally different role."

What Jordan has been doing is leading, demanding, insisting on little things like floor positioning and defensive rotations. It has turned a perennial loser into a winner, at least for now.

"There's such a positive feeling right now," Jordan said Wednesday night. "Every game we go into, we feel we can win if we play the game the way we've been playing the previous game."

"I'm very happy for him, I always wish him the best," said Magic center Patrick Ewing, who came into the NBA a year after Jordan in 1985. "But when he comes here, it's like with the Bulls and the Knicks; we've got to get the job done."