Raptors return home to face Hawks

Basketball Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hoping to hold on to a playoff berth that's beginning to slip away, the Toronto Raptors return to the Air Canada Centre this evening for an important matchup with an Atlanta Hawks team that figures to be without its leading scorer for a second straight night.

Toronto heads home having lost five straight and nine of its last 10 contests and now holds a tenuous grasp on the eighth and final postseason seed in the Eastern Conference. The Raptors currently own a 1 1/2-game edge on the similarly-struggling Chicago Bulls for that spot.

The last four setbacks came during a West Coast road trip that ended with Sunday's 109-98 loss at Portland. The Raptors were able to cut an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to two midway through the final period, but an 8-2 run gave the Trail Blazers a 101-93 lead with under 3 1/2 minutes to go.

"I thought we competed pretty hard," said Raptors head coach Jay Triano. "At halftime we talked to our guys about doing a good job. The shots that (the Blazers) were making, we had hands in their face, and they were still making shots."

Chris Bosh also kept Toronto in the game thanks to a 28-point, seven-rebound effort, with Hedo Turkoglu and Amir Johnson netting 14 and 13 points, respectively, in defeat.

The Raptors, who will also host surging Oklahoma City on this brief two-game residency, are a solid 22-10 at the Air Canada Centre this season but have dropped three of their last four outings as the host.

Atlanta enters tonight's tilt having won three in a row after Tuesday's 108-84 road rout of hapless New Jersey. The Hawks cruised despite All-Star swingman Joe Johnson sitting out due to Achilles' tendinitis that will force him to miss this game as well.

Jamal Crawford helped offset Johnson's absence by pouring in 25 points, with Al Horford adding 15 points and 11 rebounds on the evening.

"I thought we were pretty good defensively as well as our offense," said Hawks coach Mike Woodson. "I mean, we moved the basketball and the open man got it and we made shots."

Tuesday's triumph closed Atlanta within three games of Orlando for first place in the Southeast Division. The Hawks are one ahead of Atlantic Division leader Boston for the No. 3 seed in the conference race.

The Hawks will be shooting for their fifth straight victory over Toronto, with the last two of those wins having taken place this season. Atlanta handed the Raptors a 111-89 loss up north on December 11, with Johnson pacing six Hawks in double-figure scoring with 20 points.

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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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