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Westbrook, Durant lead Thunder over JazzBasketball Betting Lines03/14/2010 - 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 and sit in fifth in the Western Conference. Jeff Green donated 14 points, while Nenad Krstic and Thabo Sefolosha each chipped in 13 for the victors. Oklahoma City shot a sizzling 60.3 percent from the field. Wesley Matthews finished with a career-high 29 points for the Jazz, who ended a four-game road trip with a 2-2 mark and are now just a half-game ahead of the Thunder in the standings. Deron Williams battled through a sore shoulder and wrist to record 27 points and 14 assists before fouling out. Carlos Boozer tallied 18 points and 11 boards for Utah, which lost back-to-back games for the first time since a three-game skid from December 31-January 4. The Jazz were without center Mehmet Okur (back), forward Andrei Kirilenko (calf), and reserve guard Ronnie Price (wrist) on Sunday. A Westbrook jumper put the Thunder ahead 27-19 late in the first quarter, but the Jazz closed the period on a 7-2 spurt to get within three, 29-26. Ahead 35-31 early in the second, Oklahoma City ripped off eight straight points to build a 43-31 margin with over 5 1/2 minutes remaining. The Thunder led for the remainder of the half and took a 59-49 advantage into the locker room. A Paul Millsap jumper cut the gap to six, 78-72, with over 4 1/2 minutes left in the third. But the Thunder responded with a brief 8-1 surge. Westbrook's driving layup made it an 86-73 contest with 2:45 remaining. The score was 90-79 after three periods. Utah never got closer than six in the fourth. Game Notes The Thunder have won all three games against the Jazz so far this season, including an 87-86 thriller on December 31 at the Ford Center...Oklahoma City went perfect on a three-game homestand and has won six straight at home...The Jazz signed guard/forward Othyus Jeffers to a second 10-day contract...Durant recorded his 37th 30-point game this season...The Jazz made 50.6 percent of their shots.
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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
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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
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FOOTBALL TRASH TALKNFL Football Trash TalkTrash 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.
Betting the NFL preseasonRule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games." When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night. The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine. “I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.” The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark. “We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.” The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long. “It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.” Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play. “You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt." So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps? “Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says. Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins. Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet. Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter. “If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says. Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider. The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason. “We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003. Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule. To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards. |
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