Call It a Day of Big Returns for the Lakers

Getting his feet wet became doing a cannonball with a running start, even if it was into the shallow end. Coming against the Vancouver Grizzlies and all.

A greater test for Nick Van Exel, and all the Lakers, comes tonight in Seattle. But this wasn’t bad, a 119-110 victory Sunday afternoon before 18,983 at General Motors Place as their all-star point guard returned from a month-long absence.

Van Exel left with 4:40 remaining after the Lakers turned a close game at the start of the fourth quarter into a blowout. That gave him 18 minutes in all as Derek Fisher’s backup, right around the target time, long enough to pile up eight points while making three of four attempts, six assists against only one turnover, and two steals.

Long enough to make a definite impression.

“I was just hoping he could get out there and get a little feel,” Coach Del Harris said. “I didn’t think he would make a big contribution. Instead, he made a very big contribution.”

Added Fisher, who played 30 minutes, practically a day off considering he came in averaging 40.1 minutes in the month-long stretch: “He looked good. I knew from seeing him work out the other day that he was going to come out and not look like he was hurting or anything or carrying the leg. He looked sharp.”

After almost missing the game because of . . . back problems!

Van Exel had last played Feb. 15 against the Houston Rockets at the Forum, then sat out the next 13 games, first as a precaution as tests failed to reveal the cause of a persistent clicking in the right knee, and then after he underwent arthroscopic surgery Feb. 26 that removed bone fragments and scar tissue. He went on the injured list. The Lakers went on a 9-4 run with Fisher as the starter.

They were riding a five-game winning streak, the best run since opening the season 11-0, when Van Exel on Saturday took part in his first full practice since the operation. He had no problem with the knee. He had plenty of problems with the lower back.

Pain and stiffness greeted him Sunday morning, only hours before the noon tipoff. As late as 15 minutes before game time, after Van Exel had been activated and Shea Seals put on the injured list because of back spasms to create a roster spot, the Lakers were still not sure he would play.

He was about to come all this way after rehabilitation that allowed him to return at least five days ahead of schedule, and then have to sit for another day. Because of something that didn’t need surgery, didn’t get ice packs taped to it after even the mildest of workouts.

“I was thinking about that,” Van Exel said. “I said, ‘I just can’t miss the game because of a bad back. I missed all those games. My knees were feeling fine. I just can’t miss because of the back.’ ”

It turned out, of course, he didn’t have to.

Van Exel sat out the first quarter, then started the second. He played until 4:16 remained, sat for another long stretch, and then played for another long stretch.

When he went back in for the second stint, with 3:16 left in the third quarter, the Laker lead was two. It was still two for the start of the fourth quarter, 90-88, as they struggled to put away an opponent that four days earlier had beat the Nuggets and had only one victory in its last 11 games. But that’s the last the Grizzlies saw of a game.

On the first possession, Van Exel assisted on Robert Horry’s dunk, part of 23 points on nine-for-11 shooting that gave Horry his highest output in his 79 games as a Laker. On the second one, Van Exel made a three-point basket, starting to break the game open.

“They were already on the ropes,” Harris said of the Grizzlies. “It was one more right to the jaw.”

A few others would follow, if with less force--the Lakers showed some defense and went on a 10-2 run that started with the next trip downcourt after Van Exel’s three-pointer, which earned a 13-point cushion. Van Exel left with the lead at 16 points, probably handing the ball back to Fisher for one of the last times.