Kobe leads Lakers into Big D to face Mavs
Basketball Betting Lines
02/24/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It didn't take long for Lakers star Kobe Bryant to find his groove as he nailed a game-winning jump shot last night in his return from a five-game absence due to a balky ankle. Bryant will lead Los Angeles again tonight against the Dallas Mavericks in Big D.
The 12-time All-Star hit a three-pointer with 4.3 seconds remaining to lift the Lakers to a 99-98 victory at Memphis on Tuesday and finished with 32 points, including the team's final nine.
"It's fun," Bryant said after playing in his 1,000th regular season game. "That's my responsibility to make plays down the stretch. If it's not taking the shot, then it's making the play for someone else. I enjoy it."
Pau Gasol had 22 points and 13 rebounds, while Andrew Bynum contributed 15 points and 10 boards before fouling out late in the fourth quarter. The Pacific Division-leading Lakers have won five of their last six games overall and three straight on the road. The top seed in the West also owns a 17-9 record away from Hollywood.
After tonight's game in Dallas, Los Angeles will return to Staples Center for a three-game homestand versus the Sixers, Nuggets and Pacers.
The Mavericks will shoot for their fifth consecutive victory tonight in the finale of a three-game homestand versus the Lakers. They improved to 2-0 on the residency with Monday's 91-82 triumph over Indiana, as Dirk Nowitzki scored 23 points and pulled down seven rebounds to lead the way.
Jason Terry added 14 points off the bench, while newcomer Brendan Haywood had 13 points and tied a career high with 20 rebounds. Jason Kidd chipped in 10 points and seven assists for Dallas, which leads the Southwest Division by 3 1/2 games ahead of San Antonio and is currently seeded fourth in the West.
"We definitely have some work to do, but we'll take the four-game win streak especially this late in the season and we have a big one obviously coming up on Wednesday, a huge challenge with the Lakers," Nowitzki said. "So, these guys really fit in well. I think Haywood really made this trade great and the sky is the limit of we keep working."
Dallas has won three in a row at home and is 18-9 at American Airlines Center in 2009-10.
Los Angeles has taken two of the first three matchups with Dallas this season and posted a 100-95 road victory in the previous meeting on January 13. The Lakers won all three meetings a year ago and eight of nine overall with the Mavs, who are winless in the previous three as the host in this series.
In 46 games (40 starts), Bryant, who is fourth in the NBA with 28.0 ppg, is averaging 24.9 points for his career against Dallas. Under head coach Phil Jackson, the Lakers are 26-11 against the Mavericks.
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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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