New Number, Same Old Jordan : Pro basketball: He shakes the rust and plays 43 minutes, delivering 19 points, six rebounds and six assists in return.

Basketball’s sun god reclaimed his throne Sunday and all was right in the game, at least as far as TV ratings were concerned.

Of course, Michael Jordan’s own game was rusty and the Bulls’ game was as harmonious as a piano that had fallen off a truck. Jordan missed 21 of 28 shots. So how does one account for Chicago’s rally from 16 points behind in the fourth quarter to force overtime before bowing, 103-96, to the Indiana Pacers, the hottest team in the East?

He’s still Michael Jordan. After 18 months off, at the bottom of his game, he’s still incomparable.

“You guys made my day,” Pacer Coach Larry Brown said to the few people who ventured into the victors’ dressing room. “The Beatles and Elvis are back and you come to talk to me.”

Jordan, wearing No. 45 instead of his retired 23, scored 19 points, with six rebounds, six assists and three steals in 43 minutes. If that didn’t live up to the buildup, it was understandable. The game couldn’t have been hyped more if John, Paul, George, Ringo and The King had sung the national anthem. With more notice, the Pacers might have booked the 60,000-seat HoosierDome, or Woodstock.

Not that they were totally delighted to be so honored.

“Hey, I think Michael is the greatest player who ever lived,” Pacer President Donnie Walsh said before the game. “But you’re telling me that now, just before the playoffs, they’re to get the best player in the world? And he’s going to play my team? Am I supposed to be jumping up and down about that?”

On the Pacers’ pregame radio show, an Indiana announcer said if Jordan scored 50 points, it would be the 34th time in his career.

Yeah, and if he had scored 100, it would have been his first time, but that wasn’t happening.

Jordan flew down on his own chartered jet and stayed at the home of a friend while fans congregated at the team’s hotel. Three hours before the game, he was in empty Market Square Arena, working on his shooting.

He missed his first six shots and his first free throw before scoring, 4:13 into the second quarter.

By the fourth quarter, he was drawing the defense and passing off, which was how the Bulls got back in the game. Predictably pathetic, they had been outrebounded, 30-13, in the first half (15-13 by Dale Davis alone), but Jordan kept the pressure on, and Scottie Pippen scored seven points in the last 1:24 of regulation, tying the game with a three-point shot with :03 left.

When Jordan made two jump shots in overtime, it looked as though the Pacers had carried the wrong man into position to beat them. But with 1:13 left and the Pacers up, 97-96, Mark Jackson made an 18-footer. With 29 seconds left, Byron Scott drove the middle, made a short running shot, was fouled and made the free throw to put the game away.

“You know what this was?” Jordan said at a postgame news conference, breaking a two-week silence. “It was one of those bad games. I have something to build upon. If I had come in and scored 60, then it looks boring, but now I have to work my way back up to my caliber of play. It’s disappointing that I played bad, but this isn’t the first time that I played bad in the game of basketball.”

Of course, questions had been piling up. His answers:

--On why he came back: “There’s nothing under the table. I wish there was. I’m back strictly for the love of the game.”

--On how long he’ll stay: “I didn’t make this a cameo.”

--On the circus environment that greeted his return: “I saw it in baseball, which is kind of ironic because I figured I would have a little more time away from you guys (the media), and there’s more in baseball than there is in basketball. . . . I think it’s something that, quite frankly, it’s been bestowed upon me that I really didn’t ask for. . . . But I do know how to deal with it, and certainly, it’s never going to affect my decision in terms of what I truly love to do.”

--On his mission: “I come back with the notion of the Magic Johnsons, the Larry Birds, the Dr. Js, all those players who paved the road for a lot of the young guys, and the young guys are not taking care of their responsibility to maintain that love for the game--and not let it waste to where it’s so business-oriented that the integrity of the game’s going to be at stake. So, yeah, I’m back because I’m able to come back. Some of those guys (Johnson, Bird and Julius Erving) are not able. If they could, I’m pretty sure they would.”

--On changing his number from the 23 the Bulls retired to 45: “I really didn’t want to bring it (23) down. That was the last jersey my father saw me in.”

--On his recent silence: “I wasn’t expecting this (reaction). It was a little embarrassing, the whole situation. It was very embarrassing because I’m human just like anybody else, and everybody was treating me as if I was a god or something. . . . I can’t tell you all how to do your job, but it was very embarrassing.”

--On the possibility he’ll remain longer than next season when his contract expires: “Never say never.”