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Y E S T E R D A Y …

Lakers 120, Jazz 110: On the night Kobe Bryant received his first MVP award, No. 24 and Co. rose to the occasion, taking the lead early and never looking back. That’s six straight wins for Los Angeles in the postseason. Pau Gasol dominated Utah far more than he did in Game 1, racking up 15 points in the first half, while Lamar Odom put together a nice double-double for the umpteenth time this season (19 points, 16 boards), and Derek Fisher (22 points on seven-of-10 shots, 4-5 from three-point range) played like he was 10 years younger. And the MVP? Thirty-four points on 11 of 18 shots to go with eight rebounds and six assists. The series heads to Utah now, where we’ll find out if the Jazz are Denver, Take 2, or more like the team everyone expected. (Expect the latter.)

Mets 12, Dodgers 1: If you snuck out of work to attend Wednesday’s Dodgers-Mets game — well, that wasn’t worth it. Brad Penny gave up 10 runs in 4 1/3, which is particularly generous for a guy whose last name is a synonym for cent. In case you were wondering, Andruw Jones scored the Blue Crew’s only run on an RBI single from Matt Kemp in the ninth. Hard to harp on the loss, considering that the Dodgers have won 10 of their last 12. Hopefully it’s not the start of a new trend.

Royals 9, Angels 4: Jered Weaver is off to the opposite of a good start this season, and Kansas City was another stop on the Befuddled Express. Now 2-5 for 2008, Weaver was shelled early and often, giving up 10 hits before being pulled after a mere three and a third innings, and summarily ending the Halos’ four-game win streak. In case you’re keeping a statistical count of LAA’s woes this season, that’s the third time that Weaver’s surrended 10 or more hits this year. He only did it twice last season. To make matters worse, it’s May.

T O D A Y…

The Lakers, Dodgers and Angels are all off today.

Yes, that shiver you feel running down your spine is a premonition of the summer sports doldrums, which are about six weeks away.

N E W S W O R T H Y…

• Everyone’s already assuming that the Lakers’ Andrew Bynum won’t be back this season. With it sounding like he may now need surgery, what will next season hold for No. 17?
• Derek Fisher has been everything that fans of the Lakers hoped he would be.
• If you’re waiting for Howie Kendrick to return to the Angels’ lineup, keep waiting.
• Count Von Count would have enjoyed watching Wednesday’s Dodgers game.

C O L U M N S…

• Bill Plaschke is mightily impressed with Kobe and the way his teammates are playing, which is at an extremely high level.
• Steve Dilbeck of the Daily News says that by winning the NBA MVP trophy, No. 24 has come full circle, and he may just have a point.
• SportsHubLA Column of the Day: T.J. Simers thinks that Utah got jobbed in Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals. His reasoning? The Jazz picked up fouls by the second, and NBA commissioner David Stern was in attendance, which means that the refs did everything they could to ensure a Los Angeles/Boston matchup in the league finals. This is nonsensical. Forgetting the whole conspiracy theory angle (which, of course, explains last year’s Cleveland-San Antonio matchup), TNT has mentioned ad nauseum that Utah was the NBA’s most penalized team this season, averaging 24 fouls per game. They committed 30 in Game 2 (LA ended with 20), which — when you take into account how much faster the Lakers are as a team than the Jazz, particularly in transition — doesn’t really seem disproportionate. A lot of those fouls were just dumb fouls. Kind of a silly column.

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