The night started off on a great note. Kobe Bryant was awarded the NBA Most Valuable Player award yesterday, and tonight he received his award once again in front of the Los Angeles Lakers fans at Staples Center from NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Kobe Bryant had a huge smile on his face and everything was clear without him even saying a word. “I’m at a loss for words, I don’t know what to say,” Bryant said as the Staples Center crowd of 18,997 roared its approval and chanted M-V-P. “I love you guys so much. We’re going to play until June. Let’s get this party started.”

After the presentation of the award, the game was underway. It was time for the Lakers to do what they do best, win basketball games.

Once again, the men in the purple and gold came out strong and built a lead right from the get go. It was nice to see Derek Fisher comfortable with his shot and drilling jumper after jumper over Derron Williams. Carlos Boozer once again couldn’t handle Lamar Odom and Kobe had drawn five different defenders by the half. Matt Harpring apparently was the best defender the Utah Jazz could throw at Kobe based on his strong body and aggressive nature.

The halftime interview with Derek Fisher was quite interesting. David Aldridge, a veteran announcer and a guy who has plenty of experience on the big stage, made a funny mistake by calling Derek Fisher, Derron rather than Derek.

Just like Game 1, the Lakers played a strong game up until the end of the third quarter, and then they let the Utah Jazz get right back in to it. Derron Williams became more aggressive and led the Jazz to within four points of the Lakers. This is when Kobe took over, really made some spectacular passes, and the Lakers hustled as a group to get the right shot off. Some great passes even led to a wide open Derek Fisher three pointer to extend the lead back up to 10 points. The game ended with a bunch of Utah three pointers followed by two Lakers free throws. When Utah was down by 10 with 6 seconds left, they fouled Sasha Vujacic and even he was annoyed that he had to shoot the free throws.

The post game interviews with both teams were quite interesting as well.

After the post game interviews, after a great evening of fantastic basketball, I thought my night was complete and I was a happy fan. Fortunately enough, TNT provided me with one more great moment. The crew of the TNT show obviously likes to have a good time, after all, it’s Charles Barkley, how serious can you be with the guy.

Ernie and Kenny decided to play with Charles Barkley as he was reading over the tele-prompter and wrote in some additional text to what was already programmed. Take a look at for yourself, this is quite hilarious.