STATS FOR YOUR DOME

Well, 82 games played to cut down the list of 30 teams to the best of the best. Only 16 teams survive and advance and 14 teams realize how bad you have to be to miss the NBA playoffs. In 2004 the Pistons were 15-6-1 against the spread and 8-12-2 over/under in the playoffs. Of those games, they were 8-4 against the spread and 5-6-1 over/under at home. In 2005 they were 9-3 against the spread and 9-4 over/under at home and 15-10 against the spread and 10-14-1 over/under overall. So that doesn’t point to a home/road trend, just towards betting on the Pistons in general. The Spurs were 15-8 against the spread and 12-11 over/under last playoffs, however they did lose game one to the Nuggets. 9-3 against the spread and 4-8 over/under at home by the way…. In the 2004 First Round home teams were 24-15 ATS 20-17-2 OU and 27-16 SU In 2005 it was a more even 21-22 ATS 22-21 OU and 24-19 SU In 2004, teams giving more than 5 points were 16-7 ATS and 21-2 SU In 2005, teams giving more than 5 points were 11-4 ATS and 13-2 SU In 2004, teams giving more than 9 points were 7-2 ATS and 8-1 SU In 2005, teams giving more than 9 points were 3-0 ATS and SU These were some of the lines posted earlier: Washington +5 at Cleveland 194 (+200) Sac +8.5 at SA 181 (+350) Chicago +8 at Miami 193.5 (+300) Denver +5 at LAC 196 (+190) LAL +7 at Phoenix 216 (+250) Milwaukee +12 at Detroit 184 (+700) Memphis +7 at Dallas 174.5 (+280) Indiana +7 at NJ Nets 174.5 (+280) The aforementioned numbers point toward jumping on the favorites, especially the big favs. That makes sense for Detroit, but I wasn’t too sold by Miami or San Antonio. The Bulls are hot and have played the Heat well all year. ‘Zo is out, which makes a huge difference and perhaps Pat Riley will not be all there on Saturday. I like the 8 points. As for Sacramento, they could steal game one. At +350 that seems like a good value, they definitely have a 22% change of stealing game one, and unless game 1 unmasks something they probably have better than a 22% chance of winning game two (presuming the Spurs win the first one). The Cavs are tough at home, winning 11 of their last 12 and going 15-5 since February. However, their backers haven’t faired as well at 9-11 ATS during that time. The Wiz have covered the last three times they played Cleveland and have been 1-3 OU this season- Saturday’s total is 194. Well, I was wrong that Lawrence Frank wouldn’t want to go into the playoffs with a two-game losing streak including a loss to the NY Knicks, apparently he doesn’t mind. So, one of several things are happening here, one possibility is that the Nets are not as dominant as some people think, two I have no idea what I am talking about and Frank knows his club pretty well. The Pacers covered all three against the Nets this year with final scores totaling 192, 189 and 192. The line is posted as Nets -7 and 174.5. I understand that it’s the playoffs and all but I’m not sure that these are the defensive powerhouses that the East usually sees come playoff time. Phil Jackson has never lost a first round series. Kobe Bryant deserves the MVP but many think that it is going to Steve Nash. But if the Lakers are going to win they need more than the 40 that Kobe will probably bring, they need to stop the Suns from the perimeter. During the year the Lakers allowed 5.8 3-pointers per game including 6.7 per on the road. Phoenix averages just over 10 made per game. Otherwise this is a good matchup for the Lakers as they won’t have to worry too much about a post presence and might even get Brian Cook to shoot some treys. But I have no idea what is going to happen. The Suns are 37-23 ATS 34-24-2 OU and 44-16 SU when they hit 8 3's. The Suns are 8-14 ATS 9-13 OU and 10-12 SU when they hit 7 or less. Against the Lakers this year the Suns hit 7, 8, 10 and 12 3-pointers in each game, following form winning three and losing the game where they hit only 7.    - nutlow

BIG MONEY MOVES LINE

Large sums of cash came flooding in from the Midwest and moved lines on the Nash MVP proposition wager according to a Bodog spokesperson… no seriously, my $100 bet at 4-1 moved it to 7-2 and the guy told me if I wanted to put another $100 down he would move it to 3-1. Wow. Good news is that there is still some left for you guy(s) at 3-1 Nash has good value here. Buehrle vs Santana- this should be hott. Santana had two monster years with WHIPs under 1.00 and BAA hovering around .200 before starting out slowly this year. In 5 games vs. the Sox last year he was 4-0 with a .92 ERA. That is pretty good. Buehrle has had back-to-back 8 inning outings… In 2005 he was 10-2 with a 2.48 ERA at home and a 6-6 record on the road with 3.86 ERA. Sox are -115 to -120 and the over/under is 7.5. This should be a pitchers duel but I would like to see 8 before committing to the under. Angels +132: Lackey is 6-1 lifetime against Oakland including a 3-1 mark last year with a 2.93 ERA. Also he was 9-2 on the road compared to 5-3 at home. Angels have some value here, Harden is pretty sweet but Oakland’s bullpen is kind of weak. From the start of last season through last week, the Angels were great bets in the first game of each series with each successive game being less profitable. No, it’s true: Angels 44-18 first game of series Angels 31-29 second game Angels 27-28 third game Angels 4-5 fourth game The Cardinals, Indians and Mets all had similar trends with wins and losses as well as moneylines. I am not sure what the reason is for this trend, perhaps weak bullpens that get more tired as the series progresses? I guess it could also mean nothing- but that would leave us without an advantage so I don’t really want to believe that. Those looking to commemorate the centennial of the 1906 Chicago Cubs versus White Sox World Series may have to wait another 100 years. Derrek Lee is out for a couple months with a broken hand, The Cubs probably tried to digest this on their day off and may be pumped to show they can play without him… but they probably can’t. The Cards are 27-11 since the start of last year with Mulder on the bump. The Cubs swept the Cards in a 3-game series earlier this year but Mulder didn’t see action. Lee is actually 11-15 lifetime against Mulder but no one else has had a lot of success against him. The Cubs are throwing Jerome Williams, Albert Pujols is 1-12 lifetime against Williams (with 1 HR) and Edmonds is 1-13. Interesting. Nobody believes that Detroit is for reals. At 9-7 (7-2 on the road) they are even-money at Seattle. And while Detroit starter Mike Maroth will probably always be known for being a 20-game loser, he is off to a very good start. Washburn is tough for Seattle but their bullpen has struggled and Eddie Guardado is getting hammered.    - nutlow

You Make the Call

- - - During the early stages of a tourney, Carlos Mortensen raises pre-flop and Evelyn Ng calls. Mortensen then asks for his 2nd card from the dealer. - - - I sent this to several friends and all responded by asking how the hand played out. The above was all the info that was provided by Cardplayer so I'm unable to answer that. Let's walk through how the hand likely played out and throw out a range of hands, to borrow a phrase from Matt Matros. Mortensen being Mortensen, at least the player shown on TV, could have had any single card in the hole. Instant instinct is to predict he had an ace in his hand, a logical guess; though with Mortensen, he could be just as likely to raise with the 2 of diamonds for example. Your thoughts?    - farfel

8 Plays on Meaningless Games

Last day of the NBA regular season- one wouldn't think it would be a great time to place a lot of bets considering the uncertainty surrounding the effort some teams will put out, but I have been on a mini-roll lately so I gotta strike while the plate is hot or whatever the saying is. I also, hit a nice little 10-1 parlay in baseball that could end up being a very expensive win as I am most likely going to put up one of those each days. I like those Bobcats, and Ben Burns agrees: "They are also a perfect 5-0 SU/ATS the last five times they were listed as favorites and 12-4 SU/ATS for the season when facing a team with a losing record. Look for them to outwork their guests and improve to 5-0 ATS the last five games in the series." I couldn'’t have said it better myself. The Grizzles were pick'’em earlier at Minnesota but now it is off the board. If it comes back then I think I gotta play them. They want to win games even though they are now locked into the unenviable 5th position as a result of their relative success. The Twolves without the Big Ticket is a losing ticket. Rockets are on a roll with their one game winning streak. Without T-Mac or Yao the Rockets are depending on another big game from Juwan Howard. He can play but the Spurs are too good even when they don’t care. Their bench is a veteran bunch with Finley, Van Exel and Horry, so they aren’t going to play the entire game anyway- but if they did they still would be in the game. Give the 3.5. I don't think that going into the playoffs with a 2-game losing streak is Lawrence Frank'’s idea of good preparation and nobody wants to lose to the Knicks after losing to the Sixers sans Webber and AI. Also, 50 wins has a nice ring to it. Give the point. Thinking about a Hawks/Cavs over 197...Hawks have won two in a row and dropped 120 at Milwaukee the other day. Last night they won 103-100 over the Heat and with the Cavs not giving 110% on defense at home, this could be a shootout. The Cavs have actually won 10 straight at home straight up. On the down side there will probably be no LeBron James and the king of garbage time, Drew Gooden, strained his left groin (no word yet on his right groin). Astros -1.5 (+155) -Pettite is great at home and was 4-0 with a 2.70 ERA against the Brewers last year. Capuano has also strugged agains the Astros Devil Rays/Red Sox over 9 (-120) -Schilling is a big overish pitcher at Fenway. Giants (+129) GL- i will need it.    - nutlow

My Kind of Town

Chicago goes 3-0 tonight with a big Bulls win in Orlando, the Cubs wining out in LA and the White Sox killing the Royals. Had my money down on the Cubs with Maddux off to a strong start this season and their bats coming to life. Tomko had some bad splits at home and at night- felt even better when Farfel’s brother chimed in giving his backing for the pick… Farfel threw down big donuts and we took it down. Bulls moneyline +190 also came in. The refs tried to take this one from the Bulls but Deng and Hinrich were big in the second half and overtime. The Magic are big and athletic but on any given night the Bulls can beat any team that isn’t a contender. Contreras threw 7 innings of 1-hit ball as the Sox combined for a 1-hit shutout. I wasn’t in on that one though. Stallion almost did go 3-0 for 15 unites but Youklis beat out a play up the middle with 2 outs in the ninth and then Logan went yard. That is the kind of performance that makes me want to listen to what he has to say for tonight: Baseball: 5 Units on Washington Nationals +137 (T. Armas, C. Lidle) 5 Units on Cincinnati Reds -165 (J. Vargas, E. Milton) 5 Units on New York Mets -162 (K. Davies, V. Zambrano) 5 Units on Colorado Rockies -132 (C. Hensley, J. Fogg) The Wiz/Bucks and Clippers/Grizzlies are the only interesting game but Wizards -7 is pricing me out. Clippers and 7.5 looks kinda nice with both teams preferring to lose. The 6 seed gets Denver at home and the 5 seed gets Dallas on the road.    - nutlow

Stallion continued...

I signed up with Pro Sports Handicapping aka John Misener aka the "Stallion" several months ago purely for his college basketball picks, based on his track record according to bigguy.com. At that time, Stallion had a sterling record. However, from the time I signed up going forward, his picks were consistent losers. My luck. Like any scam-dicapper, The Stallion continued on and offered more picks that I foolishly accepted to cost me money. Nevertheless, Stallion has given me a lot of laughs. Here's his latest note below: --- Baseball: 5 Units on Houston Astros -110 (D. Bush, T. Buchholz) 5 Units on San Diego Padres +111 (C. Young, J. Francis) 5 Units on Seattle Mariners +135 (G. Meche, L. Dinardo) OK NEW WEEK, I EXPECT THIS TO BE A GOOD WEEK FOR US AS BASEBALL IS DOWN ABOUT (-35 UNITS) SO FAR, REMEMBER THE KEY IS TO BE AHEAD AFTER EACH MONTH...GL TODAY --- I'm unsure how much 35 units is to the Stallion, but let's use $5 (the minimum bet on most sites) as the unit figure. So, he's down $175 since the start of the baseball season? That's amazing - how can you lose that many games in so short a time period? A monkey can do better. He's likely taking heavy favorites on moneylines or decided underdogs, rarely hitting the dogs, and sometimes hitting the faves for minor wins. I'm going to test a hypothesis this week - a random person with no knowledge of sports can post at least an even performance. I'll use my co-worker Kerry who has absolutely no knowledge of sports. Updates to follow.    - farfel

Deng Could Drive - Now He Can Drink

Not at the same time of course. Happy 21st Luol. Good night on the hardwood this afternoon. Our loyal reader(s) already know that I went 2-0-1 last night with the Magic winning by the required 5 points. Had to sweat the Warriors game by continually refreshing ESPN and reading live updates from Farfel via his League Pass. Got some more picks today and Farfel feels he has the ability to predict them and is probably right. So I’ll let him post them in comments, there are four of them. Additionally, I am fading Mulder. The rest of the afternoon will be spent in preparations for the upcoming WPBT event. Not sure which of us will represent LTL but we both have done so mediocre that we can’t even find any blog-worthy poker content. Hopefully we can make some noise tonight to bring some poker back to this “Sports Betting and Poker Blog.” - nutlow

MVP and LVP

There are 15 teams that have positive point differentials, they have scored more points than their opponents. All of those 15 teams are in the playoffs. This stat also correlates, I believe perfectly, with the top 5 teams in the league: Detroit, San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix and Miami. So this can't immediately be dismissed as a bogus statistic. And it makes sense as the goal of the game is to score more points than the other team. W L PCT PF PA DIFF z-Detroit 63 16 0.797 97 89.7 7.3 x-San Antonio 60 19 0.759 95.3 88.8 6.5 x-Dallas 59 21 0.738 99.4 93.2 6.2 y-Phoenix 52 27 0.658 108.6 103.1 5.4 y-Miami 52 27 0.658 100.3 95.8 4.4 x-Memphis 47 33 0.588 91.9 88.4 3.6 x-Cleveland 48 31 0.608 97.7 95.3 2.4 LA Lakers 43 37 0.538 99.1 97.1 2.1 x-LA Clippers 46 33 0.582 97.4 95.6 1.7 Indiana 39 41 0.488 93.6 92.1 1.6 y-New Jersey 48 31 0.608 94 92.5 1.5 Washington 39 40 0.494 101.5 100.1 1.4 Sacramento 42 38 0.525 98.7 97.5 1.3 y-Denver 44 36 0.55 100.6 100.2 0.4 Chicago 38 41 0.481 97 96.9 0 Orlando 36 44 0.45 94.9 95.8 -1 Milwaukee 39 41 0.488 97.6 98.7 -1.1 Golden State 33 47 0.413 98.5 100 -1.5 Boston 32 47 0.405 98.3 99.9 -1.6 Nash, numbers wise, has had a better year this year than last. Many people refer to this when defending his nomination to win as repeat MVP. Kobe is not going to win as several writers have already stated that they will not vote for him because of the Lakers' relative lack of success. Nash, as the argument goes, led his team without Amare to 55 wins. Dirk Nowitzski led his team to a 60 win season with less of a supporting cast. Lets review: The Mav's 1-2 punch is Dirk and Jason Terry. Terry can score but averages less than 4 assists per game. Young guys Howard and Daniels are key to Avery Johnson's new approach to defense, and Howard brings it on offense, too. Stack and Van Horn have both missed a good part of the season though they generally have one of them coming off the bench. Dampier feels better coming off the bench which is generally a sign of weakness, combined with Griffin they form a servicable staff. Add shot-blocker Diop and Devin Harris and you have a 60 win team?! The Nash-Marion 1-2 punch is supperior. Marion himself is being named as a potential MVP vote getter. Diaw is the most improved player and they now have a bench. Last year they found Jim Jackson, this year they get good play from Eddie House, Jones and Barbosa. Kurt Thomas is underused in the Phoenix-style offense, he's also been injured for a significant amount of time. Tim Thomas is doing well, but as Farfel says, lots of people can do well in Phoenix. I wonder if that is the reason for Raja Bell's good play. Now the hard question. Who is the least valuable player in the NBA? And not the guy who doesn't play, but rather, the player who hurts his team the most. If you take this person off of the team, your wins total would rise. Some nominees: TJ Ford, Antoine Walker, Mike Dunleavy, Damon Jones, Eric Snow. - nutlow