Hosannas or Humbug?

The black gate yawned open, and into the parking lot rolled a tricked-out black van, its license plate -- “Da Show” -- all but revealing its contents.

Shaquille O’Neal had arrived in the town he used to call home, wearing a tight black T-shirt and looking thinner, more defined, and very relaxed as he stepped out from behind tinted windows and passed through the same doors of the Laker training facility that Kobe Bryant had exited 30 minutes earlier.

The hype no longer has to be put on hold. All the characters are in place.

The Lakers and Miami Heat play today, with the backdrop of three championships in eight seasons when O’Neal and Bryant were teammates. They won, they bickered, they lost each other, O’Neal ultimately leaving his Mulholland Drive estate to take up residence in Star Island, Fla.

O’Neal prefers these days not to call Bryant by name, again referring to him in that vaguely specific way Friday in a cool El Segundo breeze outside the HealthSouth Training Center.

“We should have [stayed together], but I wasn’t the reason that things didn’t go the way they’re supposed to go,” O’Neal said. “People need to know and understand that and I think they do know and understand that.”

The barbs have been slung back and forth since July, almost all of them coming from O’Neal, leaving Bryant in a defensive posture ever since O’Neal traded uniforms with Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant.

Bryant did his best to act nonchalant Friday after Laker practice, selecting humor as his tack when asked if he had thought about O’Neal this week, their good times and bad together.

“I sat back, I reminisced, I was standing at the window, I saw two birds chirping,” Bryant said, smiling. “Not at all. I was just thinking about the game and what we’re going to do to win the game. [Thursday] I was pretty sick, so I just laid in bed, ate soup and slept all day. I didn’t really have all that much time to reminisce.”

After further prodding, Bryant offered up another helping of sarcasm.

“Y’all really want me to say [something]?” he asked, briefly pulling his face down into a mock frown. “It’s going to be very emotional for me. I’m going to have to fight back tears. It’s going to be tough.”

Both franchises have plenty at stake, the Heat trying for a team record-tying 11th consecutive victory, and the Lakers trying to discover an identity that has eluded them so far, with 10 new players cobbling together a 14-11 record and a view from the middle of the Western Conference.

But all eyes will be on a particular pregame handshake, if one takes place, and words that pass back and forth at the free-throw line, and harder-than-usual fouls, if deemed necessary.

O’Neal said he doesn’t want to talk to Bryant, but he hinted he would be cordial, if not courteous, before tipoff.

“I’ve always been a classy guy,” O’Neal said, “so I’m going to do things the right and classy way.”

O’Neal will be honored beforehand with a video tribute on the scoreboard and he is expected to be the first Miami starter introduced, providing enough time for whatever reaction Staples Center fans have planned before public-address announcer Lawrence Tanter moves on to the Udonis Haslems and Damon Joneses of the world.

O’Neal, who has called Bryant a clown and suggested he is a cancer, took a more toned-down approach with reporters after the Heat beat Sacramento on Thursday.

On whether he had anything to prove to Bryant: “I’m at the point in my career I’m not really worried about my stats. If he hits 40 [points], I’m not trying to hit 41. I’m not trying to outdo him. I have nothing to prove.”

On where today will rank among his most important games played: “Believe it or not, [it] doesn’t even make my top 100 battles. I’ve been in the league 12 years and I’ve had to go up against a lot of people and do a lot of things, but they’re trying to make it a me-against-him thing and I’ve always been a team player. I’ve just got to play my game and let the game come to me and will my team to win.”

On whether he missed L.A. fans: “They know I miss ‘em. They know I love ‘em. Hopefully they miss me. I miss the police officers. I miss the valet. I miss the maintenance workers. I miss the regular people walking their dogs on the street. I miss everybody.”

O’Neal even rebutted a rebuttal, saying Bryant was indeed a Corvette, not a Lamborghini, as Bryant had intoned after O’Neal offered up a Corvette-hitting-a-brick-wall analogy earlier this week when asked if Bryant would penetrate the lane.

Bryant, for his part, discussed the self-proclaimed brick wall while trying to play down today’s game by bringing up the past.

“It’s no different than what we’ve done in practice [as teammates],” Bryant said. “I spent eight years trying to dunk on him. He fouled me every time.”

And if Bryant tries to dunk on him again today?

“He’ll foul me again,” Bryant said.

In the end, it will be the seventh-best team in the West against the top team in the East, as the current league standings dictate.

“We have a different path than they do,” Bryant said. “They’re obviously in contention right now and we’re trying to get there. Right now we have that seventh slot. It’s about trying to gain some ground, trying to gain some momentum to try to create some distance [in the West].”