Basement brawl: Woeful Nets visit lowly Sixers

Basketball Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The bottom two teams of the Atlantic Division will go head- to-head for the final time of the 2009-10 campaign this evening at the Wachovia Center, where the homestanding 76ers aim for a season sweep of the dismal New Jersey Nets.

Both clubs enter tonight's clash mired in five-game losing streaks, with the Sixers suffering their 10th defeat in 11 outings with Monday's 94-84 home setback to the New York Knicks.

Philadelphia saw an 11-point halftime lead evaporate in their latest loss after being outscored 29-14 by the Knicks in the third quarter. The 76ers shot a woeful 27.3 percent from the field in the second half and just 38.4 percent for the game.

"You get open shots and just can't make it," said Philadelphia head coach Eddie Jordan afterward. "That was the story of the game for me."

Jrue Holiday was one bright spot for the Sixers, with the rookie logging 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Andre Iguodala and Samuel Dalembert each posted double-doubles in a losing cause, with Iguodala amassing 14 points and 17 rebounds and Dalembert finishing with 11 points and 18 boards.

Philadelphia played Monday's contest without second-leading scorer Louis Williams due to back spasms, while forward Thaddeus Young fractured his right thumb in the loss and will be sidelined indefinitely. Williams, who's averaging 14.7 points and 4.1 assists this season, will be a game-time decision for tonight's tilt.

Even short-handed, the 76ers figure to have a solid chance of stopping their current slide, considering they've won all three previous meetings with the lowly Nets in 2009-10. In addition, New Jersey is an NBA-worst 7-59 for the season and owns a brutal 4-31 mark on the road.

The Nets' struggles continued last night in East Rutherford, where the league doormats were dealt a 108-84 defeat by Atlanta. New Jersey shot just 38.5 percent as a team and played without standout guard Devin Harris, who sat out because of a upper respiratory infection that is expected to force him to miss tonight's game as well.

"We've sustained runs before in previous road trips since the All-Star break," said center Brook Lopez, who led New Jersey with 21 points. "We just didn't do that tonight."

Forward Josh Boone racked up 13 points and a career-high 20 rebounds against the Hawks and has averaged 8.8 boards in five games since replacing the injured Yi Jianlian (sprained left ankle) in the starting lineup.

The Nets, whose three losses to the Sixers this season have all been by four points or fewer, have prevailed in two of their last three visits to the Wachovia Center.

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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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