Celtics know perils of road closeout games

Basketball Betting Lines

06/15/2010 -

LOS ANGELES (AP) -When the Celtics wrapped up Game 5 and moved one win away from an unprecedented 18th championship, the jubilant Boston crowd sent them off to the West Coast for the final time this season with one last chorus of that age-old ``Beat L-A!'' chant.

Although Kevin Garnett and his teammates appreciate the suggestion, they know it's easier shouted than done - particularly in the playoffs, and especially on the road.

The Celtics will have to overcome their unimpressive record in closeout playoff games away from Boston to finish off the Lakers in Game 6 of the NBA finals on Tuesday night.

For all their remarkable success over the past three seasons, including the 2008 title and another finals run this year, the Celtics have converted just one of their eight chances to finish a playoff series away from home.

They've got two opportunities at Staples Center, which could be the fifth building in which the Celtics have won a title at the expense of their longtime rivals - or the site of a remarkable Hollywood ending for the Lakers. If Los Angeles survives Tuesday, a champion will be crowned Thursday in Game 7.

``They're playing at home. Home is always where your heart is,'' Garnett said. ``With the severity of the game, it's all-out on both ends for both teams. This will probably be the hardest game of the season, if not of the series, if not of everybody's career, this game coming up.''

Even after winning three of the series' last four games, and even after compiling the NBA's second-best road record in the regular season (26-15), the Celtics can't be lulled into thinking they've got the Lakers on the run.

Although Boston narrowly won Game 2 at Staples Center on the strength of Ray Allen's historic 3-point shooting binge and Rajon Rondo's late-game poise, Boston knows the Lakers are 9-1 at home in the postseason, with everybody from Kobe Bryant to the Lakers' bedraggled bench playing with much more passion and confidence.

``The Lakers ... got homecourt advantage, but we've played the best all year on the road,'' Boston coach Doc Rivers said. ``We're going to have to beat them at their best, because they're going to be great there, and we can't expect anything else.''

While the Celtics have ample reason to be confident, Lakers coach Phil Jackson and Bryant also didn't seem particularly worried before the grand finale. For all their struggles in the past four games, the Lakers realize they've usually risen to important occasions over the past three seasons - notwithstanding that 2008 finals blowout loss in Boston's clincher.

``If you look at it, they've come home and carried the 3-2 lead back,'' Jackson said. ``It's basically home court, home court. Now we're going back to home court to win it. That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it?''

Sure, on paper. In real life, two straight losses in Boston led to a dire series deficit for the Lakers, who hadn't even trailed in any playoff series this season. Yet Jackson even described the Lakers' locker room as ``spirited'' after losing Game 5 in their lowest-scoring performance of the postseason in the 92-86 loss.

For all their struggles in Boston, the Lakers realize they only have to defend their home court to win their 16th title - and these Los Angeles crowds will be far from laid-back.

``We have a challenge, obviously, down 3-2,'' said Bryant, who scored 38 points in Game 5 while his struggling teammates only managed 48. ``We let a couple opportunities slip away, but it is what it is. Now you go home, you've got two games at home that you need to win, and you pull your boots up and get to work.''

Heading into the finals, the Celtics believed they could beat the Lakers by shutting down Bryant's teammates, even if Kobe went crazy on them. After all, that's what Boston did two years ago in the finals - and so far, it's working splendidly again.

Bryant is averaging 30.2 points per game, while Pau Gasol averages 18.8 points and 10 rebounds despite glaring inconsistency in his game in Boston. That's just about it: Nobody else in purple and gold is averaging more than Andrew Bynum's 9.6 points per game.

And two straight losses undeniably have frazzled the Lakers a bit, with Bryant noticeably furious on the court while Game 5 slipped away. Even Jackson seemed a bit testier than his usual placid self, yelling at Bryant and Ron Artest during the game and later attempting to inspire his team in the fourth quarter with a false bit of information about the Celtics' propensity for blowing late-game leads.

While Jackson likely senses the biggest danger yet to his streak of 47 straight playoff series victories after winning Game 1, the Celtics sense a golden opportunity to join the Boston greats who won multiple titles while repeatedly denying the Lakers nine previous times in the NBA finals.

They've just got to finish a playoff series on the road, something they failed to do in Miami and Orlando earlier this season. While Boston's current starters have never lost a playoff series, they also haven't finished one away from TD Garden since the 2008 Eastern Conference finals against Detroit.

``It's going to have to happen if we're going to win the title,'' Paul Pierce said. ``I mean, that would be great. I'm not going to try to jinx it right now. We've got to win one game, that's the goal, but it would be amazing if we get it done.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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