A ‘Very Excited, Grateful’ Hearn Returns Tonight

Chick Hearn waited nearly four months to arrive at a game he would call, through two operations and two rehabilitations, through hundreds of kind letters, and through 56 Laker games, the first without him going on four decades.

By Monday afternoon, he had ditched his walker. He had pondered the Lakers. He had researched the Utah Jazz.

Tonight, Hearn returns to the chair and the organization he adores, to a microphone he once kept warm in every broadcast from Jerry West to Kobe Bryant.

“I’m very excited and very grateful,” he said with the voice and enthusiasm that made Chick Chick and, often enough, the Lakers the Lakers.

As it drew near, he said Monday, his comeback gradually became less about his health and more about the job, and more about the game. The limousine will carry him and his wife, Marge, out of Encino, to Staples Center, so that it all can happen again, as though the routine never paused for heart surgery and then hip-replacement surgery.

“The idea of coming back, after you miss 50-something games, that’s a while,” said Hearn, who visited the Laker locker room before their recent trip. “I’ve missed the familiarity of it. But the reception I got from the players when I was there brought me up tremendously.

“I realized I missed the camaraderie of the coaching staff and the players and the press. There’s a bond that develops when you’re there every day. It gets to be routine.”

Hearn said he was feeling well enough to travel with the club on its final regular-season trip--next weekend to Portland--and also through the playoffs. But he’ll start with one game, one night and, for sure, one very large reception.

“I’ll feel it,” he said. “I hope I deserve it. And I hope I can keep at it.”

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Shaquille O’Neal apparently suffered no complications in his right wrist after playing Sunday against the Miami Heat.

He sat out the middle two of a four-game trip to allow a sprain to improve, then wrapped his wrist and had 40 points and 11 rebounds in 41 minutes, most against Alonzo Mourning.

O’Neal is expected to play tonight, which, as Rick Fox insisted, is a good thing for the Lakers.

“You don’t want to admit you’re a mediocre team without him,” Fox said, “but that’s the truth.”

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Once again the Lakers have played just well enough to finish among the leaders in the Western Conference, and just poorly enough to make everyone believe they’re vulnerable.

Once again, the Lakers aren’t particularly worried, not when O’Neal plays the way he did Sunday on extended rest.

“We just have to keep the spot where we’re at....” O’Neal said. “Just play with each other. We didn’t have the No. 1 spot last year, either, and last year was pretty fun in the playoffs.

“We don’t want it the easy way anyway. We want to have different ways of winning it. It’s all about blood, sweat and tears.”

In the meantime, maybe they’ll play hard enough to finish ahead of the Dallas Mavericks, just for laughs.

The Lakers, Mavericks and Spurs, ranked two through four in the conference, are separated by one game. The Lakers own the first tiebreaker with both teams.

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O’Neal will host a fund-raiser Friday at the new Palm restaurant in downtown Los Angeles to benefit Kidz Educational Experience, the Odessa Chambliss Foundation and the Staples Center Foundation. Details: (213) 742-7166.

TONIGHT

vs. Utah

7:30 Fox Sports Net

Site--Staples Center.

Radio--KLAC (570).

Records--Lakers 54-23, Jazz 42-35.

Record vs. Jazz--2-1.

Update--Kobe Bryant averaged 38.5 points in two wins against the Jazz, and scored 26 points in the loss.... The Jazz arrives on the second night of a difficult back-to-back, having lost to Dallas on Monday night in Salt Lake City.... The Jazz was 22-22 on Jan. 26.... There are scenarios in which the Lakers could play Utah in the first round of the playoffs, but the more likely early matchup for the Lakers is Portland or Minnesota.

Tickets--(800) 462-2849.