Young, Wizards top Blazers

Basketball Betting Lines

02/15/2012 - Portland, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nick Young dropped in a game-high 35 points as the Washington Wizards posted back-to-back wins for the first time this season with a 124-109 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday.

John Wall added 29 points and nine assists, while Jordan Crawford contributed 21 points off the bench in the Wizards' first win in Portland since March 28, 2005, snapping a six-game losing streak.

"It just felt good (tonight)," said Young. "Seeing my teammates excited and them hitting shots and us gelling off each other, I feel like we're turning into a good team. We just have to keep learning from it."

Nicolas Batum led the Blazers with 33 points and Gerald Wallace had 25 in Portland's fourth loss in five games. Marcus Camby recorded 13 points and 12 rebounds in Portland's first three-game losing streak at home since March 29- April 6, 2008.

Portland's leading scorer LaMarcus Aldridge left the game less than two minutes into the first quarter with a left ankle sprain. After sinking a fadeaway jumper from the right elbow, he rolled his left ankle as he made his landing. He immediately fell to the floor and was looked at by team trainers before being helped into the locker room, where x-rays were negative.

The game's opening seven-plus minutes saw three lead changes and three ties until a 7-3 spurt by Portland put them ahead, 26-20, with just under two minutes left in the first quarter.

But the Wizards recorded the final eight points of the first and took a 28-26 advantage into the second on Jordan Crawford's tip-in inside the final second.

Jamal Crawford opened the second quarter with a three-pointer to put the Blazers back on top before Washington reeled off a 16-4 run to jump out to a 44-33 lead.

Portland managed to close the gap to six on two separate occasions in the remaining six minutes, but the Wizards responded each time with a three- pointer and held a 58-46 advantage at the break.

Washington held at least a seven-point lead in the third as the Wizards continued to quell any type of Portland run en route to a 91-82 lead after three.

That lead stretched to as much as 17 in the fourth quarter before an 8-0 swing by Portland cut the deficit to single digits, 108-99, with less than six minutes left in the game.

The Wizards answered with a 7-0 spurt to extend its lead back to 16 points, but another 8-0 run by the Blazers closed the gap to 115-107 with 2 1/2 minutes remaining.

That would be as close as the Blazers would get, though, as a Young three- pointer followed by a JaVale McGee dunk extended the lead back to double digits with less than a minute to go in the game.

"They just outworked us," Blazers head coach Nate McMillan said. "Somewhere along the line, pride has to show up. We just looked like we were waiting for someone to rescue us, and we have to do that ourselves."

Game Notes

The Wizards improved to 2-16 against teams with winning records this season...McGee finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds for Washington...Portland scored 28 points off 16 Washington turnovers...The Trail Blazers turned the ball over 11 times, resulting in 20 points by the Wizards...Washington outrebounded Portland, 43-31.

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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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