Hearn Shows the Jell-O Is Still Jigglin’ in His Game

With the Lakers on their way to their third consecutive playoff sweep Sunday, Chick Hearn finally came clean.

Yes, Chick admitted, he has lost a step.

Derek Fisher had just lobbed an easy assist to an unguarded Shaquille O’Neal, so easy that Stu Lantz was laughing as he mused to Hearn, “You could make that pass.”

Lantz was joking, of course,

but once again, his intended punch line wound up merely a straight line for Hearn, who responded

with a very skeptical, very dubious, “W-e-l-l . . . “

Lantz broke up again.

Chick might not be able to go to his left the way he once did. Occasionally, he’ll lose his grip on a player’s last name or brick a statistic or refer to the Eastern Conference final as a matchup between Milwaukee and Indiana instead of Milwaukee and Philadelphia. But this is big-picture time at this point in the NBA season--just ask the San Antonio Spurs about that one--and if you had to pick one voice to call one basketball game on radio, Chick remains the go-to guy.

Who else would you choose? Brent Musburger? Sunday in Southern California, Musburger was Option B, calling Game 4 of the Western Conference finals for ESPN Radio. Talk about your taste tests. Who is going to tune in to Musburger, even with Dr. Jack dispensing his wisdom in between baskets, when Hearn is available and riffing away a few clicks to the left of the dial?

Horace Grant is hacked by any one of a number of Spurs under the Laker basket during the first quarter. Whistle blows. Was the culprit Tim Duncan? Or Avery Johnson, sparing Duncan a very early third personal foul?

Lantz: “Who are they going to call that on?”

Hearn: “I don’t care if they call it on Santa Claus. Somebody’s got it.”

A few moments later, Fisher buries a 20-foot jump shot.

Hearn: “This guy, I don’t believe it!”

Lantz: “Look at [San Antonio Coach] Gregg Popovich! He’s scratching his head, saying, ‘Who is Derek Fisher?’ ”

Hearn: “He’s the guy who turned the light on in a dark room.”

That room had been the Lakers’, still suffering rolling blackouts as late as late March. In some ways, Hearn’s 2000-2001 season has mirrored that of the team he soundtracks. Some early-season scouting reports had it that Chick was slowing down, not up to past standards, even rumored to be contemplating retirement.

But this postseason has energized Hearn. Sunday, he sounded swept up, to borrow a phrase, in the history the Lakers were rolling out. He was tough on the Spurs, as the occasion of this all-time collapse demanded. He was alternately amused and amazed by Fisher’s startling three-point performance--and, worth noting, did not refer to Fisher as being on fire from downtown.

“If I was in church,” Hearn noted after another Fisher three-pointer, “I’d say, ‘My God, how did he get that one off?’ ”

On a rebound plucked one-handed out of the air by Kobe Bryant: “He grabs it like a peach!”

On a successful, if particularly ugly, foul shot by O’Neal: “It’s a good thing that went in. If not, it would’ve broken the rim.”

As the Lakers built their lead to 17 points early in the second quarter: “The Lakers are relentless, ladies and gentlemen. And if it was the other way, I’d report it that way and so would Stu. You know that.”

In a sports-media world where memories are shorter than those of the guy in “Memento,” Hearn is an eyewitness to Los Angeles Laker history, every single piece of it. With the Game 4 rout underway, Lantz tried to tap that deep well, setting up Hearn with, “How good is this Laker team right now?”

In something of an upset, Hearn answered: “They are as good as the 1985 team with Magic and that gang. Right now, they’re that good. I don’t know how long it will last, but right now, they’re that good.”

A few minutes later, Hearn watches O’Neal lead a Laker fastbreak, Shaq to Kobe back to Shaq for the basket, and for a moment, Lantz has to move over. Chick is beside himself.

“I want to tell you what I think now,” Hearn intones above the roaring crowd. “There’s no team in Laker history that has ever played at a higher level of perfection than this team is doing.”

Lantz: “Well, you’ve seen them all, so I’ll take your word for it.”

Hearn: “It’s terrible to try to judge teams 20 years apart. Then you can only refer to memory, and memories sometimes fool you. The competition probably wasn’t as good in those days, or these days, who knows? But off of what we’re seeing from the Lakers now . . . this is an amazing basketball machine.”

Who would have expected as much three months ago?

Not Hearn, who conceded, “I’d be lying if I said I thought the Lakers would be this good this year.”

And, he added almost incredulously, “Look at the future. Fisher’s only 26, Bryant’s only 22, Shaq’s only 29, [Robert] Horry is 30, Foxie [Rick Fox] is 31. These guys have got a lot of basketball left.”

From the sound of things Sunday, they are not the only ones.