Bulls ride Rose in fourth to down Knicks

Basketball Betting Lines

02/02/2012 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Derrick Rose scored 15 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter as the Chicago Bulls held on to take down the New York Knicks, 105-102.

Carmelo Anthony had an opportunity to tie the game at the final buzzer, but his long three-point try from the right wing was way off the mark.

Rose also added 13 assists while Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver netted 16 points apiece for the Bulls, who rebounded after Wednesday's lopsided loss in Philadelphia. They moved to 2-2 on their nine-game road trip.

Amare Stoudemire had 34 points and 11 rebounds while Anthony added 26 points and six boards for New York, which has lost 10 of its last 12 games.

Rose carried the Bulls early in the fourth, scoring the first seven points and 14 of the first 18 for Chicago as the visitors took a 95-88 lead midway through the final stanza.

But the Knicks did a stellar job of defending Rose late as the reigning NBA MVP was limited to just a point in the final 5:53 of game action.

An 8-2 spurt, capped by Landry Fields' layup, pulled the Knicks within a point, 101-100, with 23.4 seconds remaining.

Korver nailed a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game. Following a New York timeout, Stoudemire had a wide-open look to tie it from the top of the arc, but his shot clanked off the side of the rim.

Taj Gibson made 1-of-2 from the line to make it 104-100 with 9.3 to go, but Anthony was fouled with 6.3 remaining. He made both foul shots to make it 104-102.

Rose, who came in 35-of-37 from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter this season, made 1-of-2 from the line to keep New York's hopes alive, but Anthony's desperation trey at the buzzer wasn't close.

Chicago shot 61.9 percent in the opening quarter and took a 29-25 lead into the second. Korver scored nine points to pace the Bulls.

The Bulls closed the opening half on an 11-4 run, taking a 55-44 advantage into the break. Rose nearly had a double-double by halftime with 10 points and nine assists while Stoudemire kept the Knicks within shouting distance by posting 18 first-half points.

The Knicks rallied in the third quarter, connecting on 10 of their first 11 shots as they pulled within 66-64 midway through the stanza. The Bulls took a 77-75 advantage into the final quarter.

Game Notes

The Bulls moved to 10-5 outside the United Center...The Bulls were without forward Luol Deng (wrist) and guard Richard Hamilton (groin/thigh)...New York had just six points from its bench, all by Toney Douglas...Joakim Noah had 10 points and nine rebounds for the Bulls.

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Huskers' Lucky hospitalized for undisclosed reason

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska running back Marlon Lucky was hospitalized Monday for undisclosed reasons after Lincoln police responded to a call at his residence.

The Nebraska athletic department said in a release Monday that Lucky was admitted Sunday night.

MySportsbook.com has the Cornhuskers listed at +2500 to win the BCS National Championship odds.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said all questions about Lucky were being referred to the athletic department. The athletic department said there would be no further comment from the department or Lucky's family.

A Lincoln Police spokesman said officers responded to a call at Lucky's residence 11:30 p.m. Sunday. The spokesman said he didn't know Lucky's condition at the time he was taken to the hospital.

Lucky, from North Hollywood, Calif., started six games last season as a sophomore and was the team's second-leading rusher, with 728 yards and six touchdowns. He also caught 32 passes for 383 yards. He averaged 19.1 yards on eight kickoff returns.

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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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