Anthony, Nuggets hand Wizards ninth straight defeat

Basketball Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carmelo Anthony scored 29 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, as the Denver Nuggets battled back to upend the Washington Wizards, 97-87, at the Pepsi Center.

J.R. Smith added 17 points off the bench and Nene chipped in 16 for the Nuggets, who have won seven of their last eight.

Andray Blatche paced Washington with 23 points and eight boards for the Wizards, who dropped their ninth in a row.

Al Thornton scored 16 points, but fouled out in the defeat, while Alonzo Gee added career highs of 13 points and 10 boards for the struggling Wizards.

Denver widened its advantage to 74-68 on an Anthony Carter trey with 8:41 left in the fourth. The Nuggets pulled away after Smith scored nine straight Denver points to make it an 88-78 game with just over three minutes remaining. Washington never cut into the double-digit edge down the stretch.

Washington got out to a 7-2 start in the opening quarter and widened the margin to as many as eight in the frame on a Thornton dunk with just over five minutes left. The Wizards led by six, 24-18, going into the second quarter.

Denver tied the game at 26 on an Arron Afflalo jumper, but the Wizards upped the advantage to six on a Shaun Livingston make with under four minutes to go in the half. Washington finished the frame up that same amount at 45-39.

The Nuggets fought back and tied the game at 51 on an Anthony jumper with under eight minutes left in the third. Denver then took the lead on an Afflalo three with 7:18 left. Denver led by as many as seven in the frame, but finished the quarter only up two after Gee drained a half-court buzzer-beating three to lessen the Denver margin to 65-63.

Game Notes

Denver improved to 35-5 this season when leading after three quarters and 29-5 at home...The Nuggets shot 50.7 percent for the game...Both teams turned the ball over 16 times...Washington next plays on Friday at Portland...Denver next plays on Thursday at home against New Orleans.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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