Quite a Jolt for Nelson in Return

Talk about your outpourings of love. . .

Karl Malone, whose last conversation with Don Nelson had been nose to nose and expletive to expletive on the Delta Center floor, called Nellie to wish him well.

Shaquille O’Neal, who recently called Nelson a clown, hugged him before Tuesday night’s game, while Nelson put on a red clown’s nose.

“Well,” said Nelson before the game, laughing, “once you get cancer, I don’t think anybody’s angry at you any more.

“I got a nice bouquet of flowers from Steve Francis. It said, ‘Get back quick, we have to kick your butt two more times.’ ”

Funny he should mention that.

Anyone who believes Nelson that his return on a night when the Lakers and O’Neal were in town was a coincidence, doesn’t know Don Nelson, king of the sight gag.

So Nelson put on his funny nose. And he had 6-foot-2 Hubert Davis line up against O’Neal at the end of the first half, just to foul him.

And then the Lakers kicked the Mavericks’ butts, running up an 18-point lead and winning for the 22nd time in the last 23 meetings. For this, Nelson came hurrying back from Maui?

This wasn’t just “Welcome Back Nellie Night,” this was a test of the resurgent Mavericks’ ambitions in the Mark Cuban era, which are boundless or, put another way, unreal.

A new arena is going up. Cuban just bought them an airplane with a weight room and a shower (although seeing as how it’s Cuban, you’d think he could just beam them wherever they’re going, as on “Star Trek.”) Cuban now imagines Dallas as The Destination for NBA players like Chris Webber . . . even O’Neal.

This actually was one of the few nights since Cuban took over when the new owner hadn’t upstaged his veteran coach, a hot dog in his own right.

Of course, all Nelson had to do to become the focus of attention was come back from prostate cancer surgery . . . and put on a red clown’s nose . . . on a night when Cuban was serving the second game of a two-game suspension.

Their Mavericks are a vastly improved, entertaining little team (Christian Laettner guarding Shaq?), but they have to win from the outside, which is the hard way. Unless something changes, in the playoffs they’ll run into a bigger team with a better inside game and home-court advantage.

Tuesday the Mavericks hit their first four three-point baskets, running up a fast 10-point lead, just as Nelson had mapped it out, recuperating at his Maui home.

However, late in the first quarter with O’Neal and Kobe Bryant on the bench, they relaxed enough to let the Laker role players (Horace Grant, Rick Fox, Isaiah “J.R.” Rider, Mike Penberthy and Mark Madsen) go 9-0 on them.

Or maybe the Mavericks didn’t relax. Like the Lakers these days, they don’t play much defense.

Then Penberthy, who hadn’t been in a game since early January, dropped in three three-pointers on Steve Nash in the second quarter, O’Neal started making free throws and before you know it, there went Nelson’s homecoming.

“Shaq makes his free throws like that, then the Hack-a-Shaq goes right out the window,” Nelson said later. “We were only able to use that tactic for a real short time in the second quarter [O’Neal made five of six free throws after the Mavericks fouled him three times in a row] and then we basically had to stay away from it, basically only foul him when he was in a dunk kind of a situation.

“To his credit, he’s a competitive guy, he stepped up and made them and took us right out of that tactic.”

Dreams are born. Dreams die. Gallant little guys run into great big guys and go splat.

“We’ve got to be hot in a game like tonight,” Nash said afterward. “But I’d like to think that we had an off-night shooting tonight and that if we had a normal night, perhaps we’d have been a little closer. Maybe not won but come closer and anything could have happened. . .

“We can beat this team and not have it be an aberration. It’s definitely a disadvantage obviously, percentage-wise, shooting the ball from deep as opposed to [closer] to the basket. But we don’t have a 300-plus-pound guy who can run and jump so we have to try to make the most of what we have.”

Welcome back to the real world, Don Nelson.