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Celtics face tough test in DallasBasketball Betting Lines03/20/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Celtics are closing in on their third straight Atlantic Division title and will resume a three-game western road trip Saturday against the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center. Boston has won three in a row and opened the trek with last night's 94-87 victory at Houston behind 26 points from Paul Pierce and 19 points and six assists out of Ray Allen. Kevin Garnett chipped in 15 points and eight rebounds for Boston, which improved to 23-12 on the road and is tied with Atlanta for the third seed in the Eastern Conference. "We just played aggressive basketball in the fourth quarter," Garnett said. "The second unit played big tonight." The Celtics will also visit the Utah Jazz on the trip and are 10 1/2 games ahead of Toronto in the Atlantic. Pierce tied Sam Jones (871) for ninth place on the Celtics' all-time games played list, while Don Nelson is eighth with 872 games and Larry Bird is seventh at 897. Meanwhile, the Southwest Division-leading Mavericks will close out a four-game homestand tonight and is 2-1 on the residency following a 113-106 triumph versus the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. Caron Butler scored 27 points and Dirk Nowitzki added 26 for the Mavs, who won for the 14th time in 15 games and improved to 24-10 in Big D. J.J. Barea registered 15 points, Shawn Marion scored 12 and Rodrigue Beaubois tallied 11 points to help Dallas bounce back from a shocking 34-point home loss to New York on Saturday. The Mavericks also saw the return of Jason Terry. The veteran guard, who had missed the last five games due to facial surgery, registered nine points in nearly 25 minutes of action. "When you come back from two weeks and able to hit your first shot and get right into it offensively, that's great," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "Conditioning is going to be a bit of a factor here for a few games until he's really back into 100 percent." Dallas is a half-game behind Denver for the No. 2 spot in the West. The Mavs defeated Boston, 99-90, back on January 18 at TD Garden to snap a four-game slide in the series. Dallas has won eight of 12 matchups with the Celtics, who have dropped 11 of 14 visits to Big D.
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(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Memphis Grizzlies are still mathematically alive for a postseason berth and will play host to the Golden State Warriors tonight at FedEx Forum. Memphis and Houston are both 5 1/2 games behind Portland for the ei
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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?" A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook. In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small. "Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets." But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?" Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year. This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here. Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions. In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries. No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning. And that's all any bettor can ask for. To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs. |
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