Surging Jazz shoot for another win over Pistons

Basketball Betting Lines

03/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Keeping up with Denver in both the Northwest Division and Western Conference standings could get a bit easier tonight for the Utah Jazz, who will shoot for their 10th straight win over the Detroit Pistons.

Utah has won 11 of the its last 12 meetings with Detroit and is unbeaten in its past four trips to The Palace of Auburn Hills. The Jazz needed overtime to top the Pistons back on November 21 of this season, though, as Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko totaled 22 points apiece in the 100-97 triumph and combined to score all 10 points in the extra session.

The Jazz have won three in a row overall and opened a four-game road trip with Tuesday's 132-108 drubbing of the Chicago Bulls at the United Center behind 28 points and a game-best 17 assists from Deron Williams. C.J. Miles scored 26 points off the bench and Boozer notched a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds for Utah, which sits a game behind the Nuggets in both the division and conference standings. Denver is currently third in the West, just a game back of Dallas.

"I like to see guys compete out there," Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. "[Tuesday] those guys competed hard the whole game."

Sloan's bunch will also visit Milwaukee and Oklahoma City and are 16-14 away from Salt Lake City.

Detroit put the brakes on a six-game losing streak with a 110-107 overtime victory versus Houston on Sunday in the opener of a three-game homestand. Tayshaun Prince registered a season-high 29 points and 10 rebounds, while Richard Hamilton totaled 22 points with eight assists.

"The last three minutes we buckled down and got some fast break opportunities," said Prince, who is averaging 20.2 points and 5.8 rebounds in his last five games. "Pretty much did a good job rebounding the basketball late, going to overtime. Our defense stayed intact."

Hamilton is averaging 23.3 points in his last four home games.

The Pistons will close out the residency on Friday versus Washington and are 15-17 at home in 2009-10.

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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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