Lin, Knicks aim to bounce back vs. Hawks

Basketball Betting Lines

02/22/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sudden New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin was brought back to reality when New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams took him to school in a recent contest at Madison Square Garden.

Arguably one of the fanciest point guards in the NBA, Williams racked up 38 points in New Jersey's 100-92 victory in New York on Monday, leaving the Knicks with two losses in their last three games following an inspirational seven-game winning streak. Lin and the Knicks look to bounce back tonight versus the Atlanta Hawks in the finale of a five-game homestand.

Lin led the way with 21 points and Amare Stoudemire scored 17 for New York, which welcomed the return of injured forward Carmelo Anthony. Anthony had missed seven straight games with a groin injury and posted 11 points and six assists in 37 minutes. Landry Fields had 10 and 11 rebounds in defeat.

"I think any time you have three new players, people coming back your identity as a team is going to change with the personnel," said Lin, who fouled out for the first time in his career. "We are not in panic mode because it is not like people show up and you have great chemistry. We have to work through some struggles but as long as we are all committed we will be fine."

Lin is averaging 24.6 points as a starter (9 starts) and has scored 20-plus points nine times this season. Meanwhile, Knicks rookie Iman Shumpert sat out with a left knee injury and will be re-evaluated after the All-Star break. He is expected to compete in the dunk contest Saturday night and is listed as questionable for this evening.

New York is 2-2 on the residency and owns a 9-9 record in the Big Apple this season. After hosting Atlanta in the finale of the homestand, the Knicks will play five of six on the road, including Thursday's matchup in Miami.

February hasn't been too kind for the Hawks, as they sport a 3-7 mark through 10 games this month. The Hawks will close out a five-game road trip tonight against the Knicks and dropped to 1-3 on the swing following a 90-79 loss at Chicago on Monday night.

The Bulls welcomed back reigning MVP Derrick Rose and the All-Star guard posted 23 points in over 34 minutes of action. Rose had been out for quite some time with a lower back issue. Jannero Pargo had a season-high 19 points off the bench and Josh Smith added 17 and 12 rebounds for Atlanta, which got 12 points from Joe Johnson.

Johnson, however, is expected to miss a week of action because of left knee tendinitis. Johnson, the team's leading scorer at 17.6 points per game, left Monday's game after just 21 minutes because of the problem.

Atlanta expects to have forward Marvin Williams back for Wednesday's game after he missed the 90-79 loss to the Bulls to attend the funeral of a family member. He is averaging 9.6 points and 5.4 rebounds in 28 games this season.

The Hawks, who are 10-8 as the guest, will return to Georgia for a four-game homestand versus the Magic, Warriors, Bucks and Thunder after visiting the Knicks. New York and Atlanta split four meetings a year ago and the Knicks have won seven of the past 10 matchups between the teams.

Atlanta has lost seven of 11 and 17 of its last 22 at New York.

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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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Online Sportsbook Football Betting

LaDainian Tomlinson Favorite to be 2007 NFL MVP

With the first NFL preseason game less than two weeks away, it is time to start thinking about football once again at MySportsbook.com. Reigning NFL MVP LaDainian Tomlinson is currently the 5-1 co-favorite to win the award again alongside Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone after his all out assault on the record books last season. For those suffering from amnesia or were under a rock last football season, all L.T. did last season was set the NFL record for rushing touchdowns (28), total touchdowns (31) and total points scored (186) to go along with his 1815 rushing yards and 508 receiving yards. At 6-1, Tom Brady is next in line which isn’t surprising considering all of the firepower the Pats added over the off-season. With the addition of Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker; it would be quite difficult for Brady’s numbers not to improve from last years 3529 yards and 24 touchdowns. There appears to be some decent value in Drew Bees at 10-1 considering he probably would have won the award last year if it wasn’t for L.T.’s record breaking season.

There is no reason to think the Saints will come back to earth this season and playing in a weak NFC, they should have as good a shot as any to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. At 15-1, Donovan McNabb could also be worth a look. Remember, many felt he was the MVP of the first half of the season before going down with a season ending injury. Reportedly, he is in great shape and well ahead of schedule to return to form. Also, he could have some added motivation to put up big numbers this season with the Eagles using their first pick in the draft on McNabb’s future successor Kevin Kolb.

Be sure to log on to MySportsbook.com to check out the complete odds for NFL MVP as well as all of the new football related futures. With the popularity of NFL futures, these betting lines will be sure to change as the money comes in; get the early sports lines now.

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