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03/14/2010 - Portland, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nicolas Batum made 5-of-6 from three-point land, en route to 22 points, leading Portland to a 109-98 win over Toronto.
LaMarcus Aldridge also provided 22 points to go with 12 rebounds and Brandon Roy scored 20 for the Trail Blazers, who have won four straight and seven of eight overall.
Andre Miller had another solid all-around game with 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists for the victors.
Chris Bosh finished with 28 points and seven boards for the reeling Raptors, who went winless on a four-game road trip and have lost five straight overall. Hedo Turkoglu and Amir Johnson netted 14 and 13 points, respectively, in defeat.
Down by as many as 11 in the early going of the fourth, the Raptors whittled their deficit down to 93-91 on a Sonny Weems jumper midway through the frame.
Portland scored eight of the next 10 points to extend the margin to 101-93 on two Batum free throws with 3:16 to play.
Two Bosh free throws made it a 101-95 game, but six straight Portland points, capped by a Batum three-pointer, sealed the win for the hosts.
Roy made two late free throws in the first quarter to yield a 32-30 lead for the Blazers, who scored the first seven points of the second frame.
Another 7-0 run capped by a Marcus Camby bucket later in the stanza made it a 49-35 game, and the Blazers cruised into the locker room with a 60-49 cushion.
Toronto won the third quarter by a slim margin and headed to the fourth trailing 85-78.
Game Notes
The Blazers are currently the eighth seed in the Western Conference and hold a comfortable five-game lead on Memphis...Toronto still holds the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference but leads Chicago by just one game...Portland swept the home-and-home season series against Toronto for a second straight season...Rudy Fernandez and Camby each scored 12 points for Portland...DeMar DeRozan had 12 points, while Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon each netted 11 for the Raptors. Calderon also handed out seven assists...Portland made a season-high 12 three-pointers (12-of-20) in the game.
<< Ducks beat Sharks; Selanne inches closer to milestone
Anaheim, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Teemu Selanne posted a goal and one assist and
crept closer to becoming the NHL's all-time leading Finnish goal scorer, as
Anaheim topped San Jose, 4-2, at Honda Center.
Selanne posted his 599th career go
<< No. 2 Stanford wins Pac-10 title by downing UCLA
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tournament MVP Nnemkadi Ogwumike had 16
points and 10 rebounds as No. 2 Stanford downed 23rd-ranked UCLA, 70-46, in
the championship game of the Pac-10 conference.
Jayne Appel added 15 points and
<< Westbrook, Durant lead Thunder over Jazz
Oklahoma City, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Russell Westbrook poured in 30 points and
dished out 11 assists, as the Oklahoma City Thunder took down the Utah Jazz,
119-111.
Kevin Durant added 35 points for the Thunder, who have won five in a row
<< North Carolina among NIT field
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Illinois, Arizona State, Virginia Tech and
Mississippi State were anointed as the top seeds for the 32-team 2010 National
Invitation Tournament.
The field was revealed Sunday night, approximately three ho
Report: Blackhawks D Campbell out for regular season after Ovie hit >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brian Campbell
will reportedly miss the remainder of the regular season after suffering a
broken collarbone when Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin hit him from behind
in Sund
Sedin twins lead Canucks past Flames >>
Vancouver, BC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Twin brothers of Daniel and Henrik Sedin each
registered a goal and an assist, as the Canucks scored three times in the
opening period and turned back the Calgary Flames, 3-1, for their sixth win in
eight g
Oregon State part of CBI >>
Princeton, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oregon State has been chosen to return to
defend its title in the 16-team College Basketball Invitational, which starts
Tuesday night.
Oregon State, with head coach Craig Robinson, the brother-in-la
Suns down free-falling Hornets >>
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Amare Stoudemire scored 36 points, pulled down
12 rebounds and sank all 14 of his free throw attempts, as Phoenix ran past
the New Orleans Hornets, 120-106, at US Airways Center.
Jason Richardson had 20 p
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
Recently I had an email debate with an angry reader who said I did not understand "the science of oddsmaking", as he called it.
He said I was wrong for suggesting oddsmakers care about who wins or loses games.
"Oddsmakers only care about splitting the betting public 50/50 on both sides of the line and keeping the commission (a.k.a. juice)," he wrote.
He might have been right about not understanding "the science of oddsmaking". After all, I'm not an oddsmaker. That said, I stick to my assertion that oddsmakers (a.k.a. sportbooks) often do care about who wins games.
Granted, as a general rule, sportsbooks try to balance their action so that they're not exposed to big losses. However, there are times when this is difficult to pull off, regardless of how much a line has moved. There are also times when that general rule is ignored and a book pursues risk.
Generally speaking, it's safe to say the books in Vegas are risk-adverse. Unlike in the past when the wise guys ruled the town, Vegas is now corporate and the goal of most casinos is to make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible.
Thus, Vegas sportsbooks try everything in their power to balance the action. They're satisfied simply collecting the juice. But these profits are small, especially compared to the take from other casino games, namely slot machines.
Because the profits at Vegas sportsbooks are so small, you could argue that many casinos operate sportsbooks simply as a novelty to keep the tourists happy.
With a growing aversion to risk, it should come as no surprise that Vegas bookmakers have been panicking this NFL season.
Despite huge pointspreads, a disproportionate percentage of bettors are still laying their money on favorites like the Eagles, Colts, Pats and Vikings rather than the dogs (a common trend for the largely recreational bettors that visit Vegas).
And much to the dismay of the books, those favorites are finding ways to cover the thick chalk. In fact, prior to Week 7, the four teams listed above are a combined 16-2-2 (88 percent) against the spread. (The tables turned dramatically in Week 7, but more on that later.)
The result has been an early-season beating for the books, and a bonanza for bettors.
While Vegas increasingly hates risk, it's no longer a major player in the sports betting world. Most of the betting action now takes place offshore where sportsbooks are not as obsessed about balance. In fact, some books encourage exposure to risk because the rewards can be so much bigger.
Consider MySportsbook.com. On its website, the book has odds pages which actually display the amount of action it's getting on games. In other words, you can see how much action the book is taking on both sides of a pointspread, moneyline or over/under.
One look at these numbers and it's obvious MySportsbook.com does not balance every game. In fact, far from it.
Take last weekend's matchup between St. Louis and Miami. By game time on Sunday, 83 percent of the betting action at MySportsbook.com was on the Rams; only 17 percent was on Miami.
What's interesting is that MySportsbook.com opened the pointspread with Miami at +6 1/2. By game time, the spread had lowered to +5.
That goes contrary to the balancing theory. If MySportsbook.com had wanted to balance the action, it would have given Miami more points; instead, it took away 1 1/2. World Series odds are now up as well.
MySportsbook.com exposed itself to even more to risk, and rolled the dice on the underdog Dolphins. Why? I contacted a representative with the book to find out. His answer was simple.
"The line moved early based on 'smart money' from sharp players," said Jeff Gilroy, a spokesperson for the book. "We also knew from early in the week that we would need Miami, therefore (we dropped) the spread to encourage Rams money.
"At the end of the day, we liked the home team."
So the conclusion is this: MySportsbook.com respected the sharp action, and gambled that the sharp bettors had a better take on the game than the recreational bettors, who were hammering the visiting Rams.
In the end, the gamble paid off. Miami, desperate for a win in front of its home fans, pounded the overrated Rams, who are terrible on the road and even worse on grass. Final score: 31-14 Fish.
MySportsbook.com was also heavily exposed on numerous favorites in Week 7, including Philadelphia, Seattle and Denver. All three failed to cover.
The fact that sportsbooks are exposed to risk on certain games is really nothing new. The fact, that Sportsbook.com is willing to show the public where it's exposed is intriguing.
Armed with this type of information, bettors can make more educated wagers. They can get an idea where the sharp money is going and conversely where the public money is headed.
MySportsbook.com is opening up its cashbox, letting bettors look inside and challenging them to take their best shot at grabbing the cash.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting odds needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
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