Rondo has triple-double, Celtics top Bulls
Basketball Betting Lines
02/12/2012 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rajon Rondo recorded his ninth career triple- double with 32 points, 15 assists and 10 rebounds, helping the Boston Celtics hold off the Chicago Bulls, 95-91, on Sunday.
Kevin Garnett added 13 points and 12 boards for the Celtics, who snapped a two-game skid. JaJuan Johnson had 12 points off the bench and Chris Wilcox and Ray Allen each donated 11 points.
C.J. Watson and Carlos Boozer had 22 points apiece for the Bulls, who played their second straight game without guard Derrick Rose (back). Joakim Noah tallied 16 points and nine rebounds.
Chicago had a five-game winning streak snapped but still managed to go 6-3 on its nine-game road trip.
The Celtics led for the entire game and seemed to put the game away early in the fourth quarter. Holding a 77-71 margin with 8:25 to play, Boston went on a 9-1 run. Johnson and Wilcox capped the surge with back-to-back alley-oop slams to make it an 86-72 game with 5:08 remaining.
Chicago had one last run in them, though, responding with a 14-3 burst to make things interesting. Watson and Boozer combined to score the Bulls' first 13 points of the run, which Luol Deng capped with a free throw to make it 89-86 with 1:43 to go.
Paul Pierce swung the momentum back in Boston's favor. After coming off a nice screen by Garnett, Pierce drained a 15-foot jumper to give the home team a five-point lead.
Not much time came off the clock at the other end after Rondo got tangled up with Deng under the basket. Rondo was called for the foul away from the ball, leading to a pair of Deng free throws with 1:23 remaining.
The Bulls had a chance to tie the game or go in front after Pierce turned the ball over. Watson missed a contested layup to spoil the opportunity.
But Pierce committed another turnover on Boston's next trip down the court. Boozer recorded the steal and called timeout with 27.6 seconds to play.
This time around, Watson threw up a 23-foot fadeaway jumper that was also contested. Rondo grabbed the defensive rebound and went 4-of-4 from the foul line down the stretch to seal the win.
The Celtics opened the game on an 18-7 run, but the Bulls responded with 10 straight points to keep it close early. Boston held a 28-23 edge after 12 minutes.
Chicago got as close as one early in the second frame, but Avery Bradley made consecutive jumpers for Boston. The visitors kept it close for the rest of the period and trailed 48-43 at the half.
The Celtics went 8-of-10 from the foul line in the third quarter and took a 72-66 lead into the final stanza.
Game Notes
Chicago had won three straight over Boston, including an 88-79 triumph in Beantown back on January 13...Pierce had nine points...Celtics forward Brandon Bass will miss at least 10 days of action due to a knee injury. Bass, who could miss up to two weeks, is averaging 11.6 points and 6.1 rebounds in 25 games (five starts) this season. Boston was also without center Jermaine O'Neal (shoulder) on Sunday, but got guard Keyon Dooling back. Dooling had been out since January 26 due to a hip injury.
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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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