Jackson, Warriors make the Jazz sing the blues

Basketball Betting Lines

02/08/2009 - Oakland, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Stephen Jackson scored 20 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and doled out eight assists, and was one of seven Warriors in double figures, as Golden State crushed the Utah Jazz, 116-96, at ORACLE Arena.

Corey Maggette added 24 points and Kelenna Azubuike 16 for the Warriors, who have won two of three overall. C.J. Watson notched 14 points and Ronny Turiaf 13 in the win.

Deron Williams finished with 31 points and 10 helpers for the Jazz, who had a three-game win streak ended. Mehmet Okur gave 21 points and nine boards while C.J. Miles had 10 points in defeat.

The Warriors grabbed a slight 23-21 lead after the first quarter and boasted a 48-45 advantage at the break.

The Jazz tied the game just prior to the midway point of the third, but the Warriors responded with eight straight points to assume a 66-58 lead.

Turiaf sparked the surge with a free throw, Jamal Crawford offered three free throws, Monta Ellis added a layup and Maggette closed it out with a pair from the line with 5:29 showing on the clock.

Moments later, Crawford hit a couple of threes and a pair from the charity stripe to make it a 76-60 Golden State cushion.

The Warriors kept pushing and opened an 86-69 lead heading into the final 12 minutes.

Utah closed within 13 points before Golden State rattled off 11 straight points to take a commanding 105-81 lead with 5:26 left in the game. The home team cruised to victory from there.

Game Notes

The Warriors shot 51.9 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from three- point range. The Jazz hit 41.8 percent from the field and 26.3 percent from behind the arc...Utah won the battle of the boards, 44-37...Utah is 9-17 as the guest this season...The Warriors opened a five-game homestand Sunday and will also host New York, Portland, the LA Lakers and Oklahoma City. They are 12-12 in Oakland this season...The Jazz were unbeaten in their previous four games against the Warriors, who have won eight of the last 12 as the host in this series.

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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."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

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.

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