Jordan can't do it alone. (NBA Insider).(basketball players)(Brief Article)

Dissing the Wizards' playoff chances is like shouting at your kid for improving an F on his report card to a B- and not an A. It doesn't seem right. Just last season, the only way "Wizards" and "playoffs" appeared together was with the words "no chance" between them.

Yet here they are, 29 games into the season, using "playoffs" and "real chance" in the same sentence and nobody is correcting them. When the week started, they were in seventh place in the easy East and trailed the first-place Nets by 4 1/2 games. Even those most critical of Michael Jordan's return must admit he doesn't look so ridiculous anymore.

"Everyone was trying to compare me to '98" Jordan says. "That's a dumb way to look at it. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm trying to educate these young players."

While they're learning, they still have to face facts. One of them: Making the playoffs remains a long shot.

The Wizards are not as good as their record. Look closely at their recent nine-game winning streak. They faced only two teams with winning records. They met the Rockets without Steve Francis, the Mavericks without Dirk Nowitzki and the Magic without Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill.

Not coincidentally, the Wizards' streak ended not long after Richard Hamilton suffered a groin injury. It took weeks for Jordan to find enough faith in Hamilton to give away some of his shots. In the first seven games of Washington's winning streak, before Hamilton was injured, Jordan took 145 shots, just one more than Hamilton. What a difference that was compared with the team's eight-game losing streak in November, when Jordan fired up 206 shots--96 more than Hamilton.

Passing to Hamilton, who is averaging nearly 20 points a game, was one thing. Letting little Tyronn Lue fire away is another. But with Hamilton and Christian Laettner (broken leg) still out for weeks, Jordan doesn't have much to choose from. Still, Jordan maintains he "fell in line" during the winning streak and knows he has to believe in his teammates unless he's ready to score 51 every game.