Rockets take fading playoff push to Washington

Basketball Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The chances of the Houston Rockets making the playoffs are fading like a flattop. Tonight they'll have to get past the Washington Wizards at the Verizon Center and hope for some help around the league.

Houston is 4 1/2 games out of the eighth and final playoff berth in the West and will close out a three-game road trip Tuesday night. It has alternated wins and losses over the past seven games and suffered a 110-107 overtime loss in Detroit the last time out on Sunday. Rockets newcomer Kevin Martin led the squad with 27 points, but missed a potential game-tying three-pointer at the end of overtime. Aaron Brooks added 25 points and seven assists in defeat.

"We came here and gave it a good fight," said Brooks, who has averaged 23.0 points and 6.8 assists over his last 10 games. "We knew it was going to be a tough one. We were in control of the game the whole game, then we kind of let it slip away from us."

Luis Scola had 20 points and 15 boards for Houston, which fell to 14-17 as the visitor this season. Scola has recorded three straight double-doubles. Jordan Hill had a breakout game for the Rockets, setting career bests with 12 points and eight rebounds off the bench.

The Wizards hope to get over a tough loss in Boston on Sunday, as they open a short homestand Tuesday versus Houston and Atlanta. Washington has lost three in a row overall, three straight at home and owns a 12-19 mark as the host.

Al Thornton led the Wizards with 24 points and 11 rebounds, but missed a potential game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer. Andray Blatche posted 23 points and nine boards in defeat, and is averaging 24.0 points and 10.6 rebounds in 10 games since the All-Star break.

"Well we choked," Wizards coach Flip Saunders said. "Six minutes to go we're up thirteen. We got young guys, they don't know what it's like to be in [that] situation."

Losers of five of six games overall, the Wizards will try to reverse their fortunes against the Rockets. Houston has won seven of eight and 15 of the past 20 meetings with Washington, which is winless in the last four matchups as the host in this interconference series.

The Wizards and Rockets will meet again on March 30th in Houston. Thornton is averaging 16.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in two games played (w/Clippers) versus the Rockets in 2009-10.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.