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Hearn would’ve loved this team

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Times Staff Writer

Chick Hearn has been gone since Aug. 5, 2002, but he certainly isn’t forgotten. He was honored by the Lakers on Wednesday night right before Kobe Bryant got his MVP trophy. And Marge Hearn, a spry 90, was there to present the game ball to the referees.

“I didn’t just hand it to them, I threw it to them,” she said proudly the next day from her home in Fullerton.

Marge attends just about every Lakers game with granddaughter Shannon Pearce and husband Tim, who live about six miles away in Yorba Linda.

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Asked what her late husband would have thought of this Lakers team, Marge said: “He would really like it. He would say these kids -- he would call them kids -- love each other. You can see it. He’d say, ‘They’re doing it together and I think it’s great.’

“And you know he always liked Kobe. He would have been so happy that he finally got an MVP award.”

Television commentator Stu Lantz, now in his 21st season, spent 15 of those alongside Hearn.

“I think about him all the time,” Lantz said Thursday before going with the team to Salt Lake City for tonight’s Game 3 of the playoff series with the Utah Jazz.

Echoing Marge Hearn’s sentiments, Lantz said, “He would be very excited about this team because they’re playing together.”

Lantz compared it to the championship teams of the 1980s with Magic Johnson.

“This team has many of the same elements as those teams -- a superstar, a couple of really good players and a real nice bench,” Lantz said. “Everyone is getting involved.”

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Tonight’s game will be televised at 6 on Channel 9, with Lantz and play-by-play partner Joel Meyers. It will also be televised on ESPN, with Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown announcing.

Said Tirico before getting on a plane Thursday: “You see the genuine joy of sharing the ball on that team. When you pop from game to game, you feel a certain magnetism toward a team that is enjoying what they’re doing, and you can see the joy with this team.”

Game 4 Sunday at 12:30 p.m. will be on ABC. Tirico and Brown will also call that game.

On Saturday, there’s an Eastern Conference playoff doubleheader on ESPN and ABC. Game 4 of the Detroit-Orlando series will be on ESPN at 2 p.m., with Dan Shulman and Doris Burke announcing.

Following Detroit-Orlando at 5 p.m. on ABC will be Game 3 of the Boston-Cleveland series with Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson.

On Sunday, besides the Lakers and Jazz, there will be Game 4 of the New Orleans-San Antonio series on TNT at 5 p.m., with Marv Albert and Reggie Miller.

TNT’s studio crew Sunday will go barefoot, as it puts its best feet forward for a good cause. The idea is to raise awareness of Samaritan’s Feet, a charitable organization whose mission is to help outfit 10 million impoverished children worldwide with 10 million pairs of shoes in 10 years.

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One other NBA note: The Lakers’ Lamar Odom will be featured on “NBA Access With Ahmad Rashad” Sunday at 3 p.m. on Channel 7. Odom says when he was a Clipper, he “always looked over at the other locker room and wondered what it would be like to be a Laker.”

Also available for viewing this weekend:

Golf, the Players Championship, today, 10 a.m., the Golf Channel; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m., Channel 4. This is considered golf’s fifth major, but can you call it a major if there is no Tiger Woods? Johnny Miller, on a conference call with reporters this week to promote the NBC-produced telecasts, beat reporters to the punch when he said, “As for Tiger, I know you guys are going to ask about that. The course is the star here.”

NHL playoffs, Philadelphia at Pittsburgh, tonight, 4:30; Saturday, Dallas at Detroit, 4 p.m., and Sunday, Philadelphia at Pittsburgh, 4:30 p.m., all on Versus. There’s less interest in Southern California this year because the Ducks have been eliminated, but Versus reports its average national audience through 41 telecasts was 457,955 viewers, up 35.5% from last year.

A side note: The Ducks’ Sean O’Donnell will spend the off-season as a regular on the “Loose Cannons” show on radio station KLAC 570.

NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Darlington, S.C., Saturday, 4 p.m., Channel 11. It appeared last week at Richmond, Va., as though Dale Earnhardt Jr. would end his two-year slump, but he crashed with three laps to go. He gets another shot here.

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larry.stewart@latimes.com

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