Hawks rally to beat Sixers

Basketball Betting Lines

11/01/2008 - Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Joe Johnson scored 35 points and hit a key three-pointer late, as the Atlanta Hawks overcame a 23-point deficit to notch a 95-88 win over the Philadelphia 76ers in their home opener.

Josh Smith added 14 points and 11 rebounds, and Mike Bibby added 19 points for the Hawks, who remain undefeated this season after winning their season-opener on Wednesday at Orlando.

Atlanta ended the game on a 17-4 run over the final 6:30.

Thaddeus Young tied a career high with 22 points for Philadelphia, while Elton Brand notched his third double-double this season with 17 points and 16 boards.

Andre Iguodala had 16 points for the Sixers, whose starting five all reached double-digit scoring, but have lost two of three to start the season.

Atlanta entered the fourth quarter down by nine points, but quickly got back in the game and started its game-ending run on a Smith jumper, which Zaza Pachulia followed with a short shot of his own.

Johnson's jumper with four minutes left tied the game at 84-84 before Brand sank a shot to put the Sixers back ahead -- the only Philadelphia field goal in the game's final 6:57.

Johnson tied the game with a pair of field goals, then after a series of missed shots, dunked with 1:53 on the clock to give the Hawks their first lead of the contest.

Samuel Dalembert was then fouled and sank both free throws for the Sixers, but their defense broke down on the next possession and allowed Ronald Murray to drive through the paint for a finger-roll layup with 1:21 left and a 90-88 Atlanta lead.

Brand missed badly on his next attempt and Atlanta's Al Horford got the rebound, but stepped out of bounds. However, Iguodala traveled, giving Atlanta the ball back.

Johnson, though, obtained the ball and, after Young fell down, stepped back and drilled a three from about six feet behind the arc. The field goal gave the Hawks a 93-88 advantage, and they cruised to the win from there.

The Sixers built up a big first-quarter lead thanks to a 14-2 run. Young helped start it with a couple of three-pointers that sandwiched an Andre Miller jumper. Young later added a layup and Brand capped the surge with a pair of free throws to make it a 31-14 game.

Philadelphia took a 34-18 advantage into the second quarter, and boosted the lead to 44-21 after an Iguodala jumper midway through the stanza. Atlanta trimmed its deficit a bit from there, but a Brand jumper gave the Sixers a 57-44 lead at halftime.

The Sixers still held a double-digit lead in the third quarter, but Atlanta chipped away more and got its deficit under 10. Smith and Johnson made back- to-back shots to bring the Hawks within 64-57 with 6:18 left in the third.

The teams traded baskets until the end of the quarter, when a Murray jumper brought Atlanta within 75-66.

The Hawks quickly made up more of the deficit at the start of the fourth when Smith made a three and followed with a basket for a 75-71 contest.

Philadelphia boosted its lead when Young made a three-pointer and Miller provided a layup, but Atlanta got within a basket with seven straight points. A Smith layup, Pachulia jumper and Smith three brought the Hawks within 80-78 with 7:43 remaining.

Game Notes

Dalembert finished with 12 points and 11 boards, while Miller had 11 points and eight assists for Philadelphia. The Sixers bench provided just 10 points...Atlanta won three of four meetings last season...Young scored 22 in a March 9 game against Milwaukee last season.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

To visit this sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your college football betting needs.

FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

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.