Muresan May Miss Game 3

As if a 2-0 deficit to the defending NBA champion Chicago Bulls in their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series were not bad enough, the Bullets now must face the prospect of playing Game 3 of the best-of-five series without center Gheorghe Muresan.

Muresan aggravated an old hip flexor injury during the Bullets’ 109-104 loss in Chicago on Sunday, did not practice Monday and is listed as questionable for Wednesday night’s game at USAir Arena.

Muresan, who iced the injury and received electrical stimulation therapy during practice, speculated that perhaps the back injury he suffered in the last week of the regular season, which still bothers him, put a strain on his hip. He said he hurt it the first time he jumped during Sunday’s game.

Muresan first strained his right hip flexor, a muscle used every time he takes a step, during the offseason. It kept him out of training camp, the pre-season and the first five games of the regular season. Muresan said that the pain of this injury is “not the same, but it’s close.”

Bullets Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said the team is prepared to play without Muresan, who scored one point in 13 minutes Sunday.

“You use what you have,” Bickerstaff said. “In the playoffs, you don’t have time to wait on anyone. You’ve got to go in, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to pack your bags.”

“If he’s in, we’ll be bigger and stronger,” forward Chris Webber said. “If not, that means Luc (Longley, Chicago’s center) will have to check me or Juwan (Howard) on the wing.”

However, it also would force Webber to spend some time guarding Chicago’s centers, which could put him in foul trouble once again. Webber fouled out of the first two games, although in Game 2 he was able to last 40 minutes and account for 21 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists.

Although Muresan had been touted as a key advantage for the Bullets coming into the series, at this point he might not be too sorely missed. The Bulls thought they had found a way to neutralize Muresan, who averaged 17.3 points and shot 69 percent against them during the regular season. They tried to exploit his immobility by using his man to run pick-and-roll plays, and Longley tried to lure him outside by shooting jumpers Sunday.

The Bulls double-teamed Muresan when he did get the ball, and he was not able able to pass effectively. Bickerstaff went with smaller lineups Sunday, with Muresan playing fewer minutes.

Point guard Rod Strickland, the other matchup the Bullets hoped to exploit, shot 5 for 18 Sunday and by the later stages was reluctant to shoot. Part of the problem is going against the 6-foot-6 Michael Jordan. The Bulls also have done a good job of helping whenever Strickland tries to penetrate.

“It’s been a little frustrating,” Strickland said after the game. “And I’m so used to going all the way and they’re kind of laying back and making me take the jump shot. At times I’m a little hesitant because I’m so used to trying to get in the lane. But that’s something I’ll solve.”

The Bullets have not allowed Bulls forward Scottie Pippen to do much. Reserve Toni Kukoc is out of sync after missing 22 games with a foot injury. Dennis Rodman is changing knee braces more often than he’s changing hair colors. There’s just that one little problem, the one Bickerstaff referred to as “the Michael Jordan factor.”

Jordan’s 55-point outburst in Game 2 wiped out what some Bullets players said was one of their best games of the season. Perhaps Jordan isn’t capable of that type of performance every night, but he has done it in back-to-back playoff games before, scoring 50 and then 55 against the Cavaliers in the first two games of a 1988 first-round series.

“We’ll make a couple of adjustments on him, but he made some shots (Sunday) with hands on the ball,” Bickerstaff said. “When you’ve got a guy who has that kind of vertical (leap), and then he goes back, I mean it’s very difficult. He didn’t get many uncontested shots.”

“I think the defense we played was pretty good,” said guard Calbert Cheaney, who scored 26 points. “He was just that much better.”

Double-teaming Jordan is risky because he has an uncanny ability to recognize it before it arrives and spin away. Or he simply jumps up and back to an area where no defender can reach him. He also is so elusive that he can cause defenders to screen each other, as was the case when Howard bumped into Cheaney and Jordan cruised by for a layup.

The Bullets can’t afford another quarter like the third quarter of Game 3, when they went five minutes without a field goal and scored only 15 points, allowing Chicago to take a nine-point lead.

“We couldn’t knock shots down, their defense picked up,” Howard said. “We had defensive letdowns and they capitalized.”