Lakers game should be electric
JERRY CROWE
Text messages from text row . . .
Sleepwalking probably won't cut it for Kobe Bryant and the Lakers tonight in Salt Lake City. . . .
EnergySolutions Arena will be electric. . . .
Jazz energizer Deron Williams, as TNT's Charles Barkley noted after Game 2, is a "stud, a flat-out stud." . . .
By the way, only 31% of readers responding to a USA Today poll believe the Lakers will win the NBA championship, while 63% favor LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. . . .
How about this for a poll question: How many believe that Andrew Bynum and pop star Rihanna are "just friends"? . . .
Before the Lakers did it this season, no team that won as many as 65 games had failed to post the NBA's best record. . . .
The Dodgers' offense has been so potent that Andre Ethier & Co. won six times during their eight-game winning streak without Manny Ramirez driving in a run. . . .
It's a pretty safe bet that the injury-riddled Angels won't win 100 games this season, but perhaps a season-long struggle would leave them better prepared for a lengthier October run. . . .
Noting that Dick Ebersol called John Madden "the best sports broadcaster that ever lived," reader Armand Varlotta of Rancho Palos Verdes e-mails to ask, "Has Ebersol ever listened to Vin Scully?" . . .
Or Al Michaels? . . .
If USC has four players taken in the first round of Saturday's NFL draft, as most mock drafts are projecting, that would make eight in two years, rendering the Trojans' 2007 loss to Stanford at the Coliseum all the more inexplicable. . . .
The Trojans had seven players taken in the first round of the 1968 and '69 drafts, among them the top overall pick in each draft, Ron Yary in 1968 and O.J. Simpson in 1969. . . .
The good news for the Ducks is, they could conceivably win the Stanley Cup without winning a game at the Honda Center. . . .
He was the player of the year in the Pacific 10 Conference as a freshman a year ago, but Kevin Love finished fourth among former Pac-10 players in voting for NBA rookie of the year. . . .
Neither the Lakers nor the always-in-the-lottery Clippers have produced a rookie of the year since moving to Los Angeles. . . .
