Williams, Jazz open road trip with win over Bulls

Basketball Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Deron Williams poured in 28 points with a game- best 17 assists, as Utah used a big fourth quarter to pull away from Chicago, 132-108, at the United Center.

C.J. Miles scored 26 points off the bench, including six treys, while Carlos Boozer notched a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Paul Millsap came within a rebound of joining him with 16 points and nine boards. Mehmet Okur chipped in with 14 points and seven boards, while Andrei Kirilenko joined Wesley Matthews with 12 points apiece in the win.

The surging Jazz have won 10 of their last 12 road games in the first of a four-game road trip. Utah moved within one game of idle Denver in the race for the Northwest Division crown.

Derrick Rose led the Bulls with 25 points and 13 assists, Brad Miller scored 20 and Luol Deng and Ronald Murray totaled 14 points apiece for the Bulls, who have lost five straight to fall back below .500.

The first quarter was a back-and-forth affair with Utah scoring seven of the last eight points to open a 35-30 edge. Utah maintained its small edge for most of the second quarter, but climbed to a seven-point edge behind a quick six-point flurry for a 63-56 game. However, a Miller three and Murray layup capped the first-half scoring for a 63-61 margin.

The game was tied at 77-77 as late as the 5:20 mark of the third quarter, but Utah used a 15-4 spurt to end the period and begin to turn the game into a rout. The Jazz tallied seven straight points for an 84-77 lead on Boozer's two free throws, and the edge grew to 92-81 by the end of the quarter on Matthews' two free throws with 21.5 ticks remaining.

The Bulls scored five points in a nine-second span early in the fourth capped by Hakim Warrick's slam for a 92-86 game, but Chicago never got closer than that the rest of the way. The margin was as narrow as nine with just over six minutes left, 108-99, on Rose's driving layup, but over the next four-plus minutes, Utah went on a 21-7 stretch to pull away.

Game Notes

Utah shot a torrid 54.2 percent from the floor, including a 12-of-20 effort from beyond the arc...Chicago made 53.9 percent of its shots, but allowed Utah to collect 14 offensive rebounds and Rose committed five turnovers...The game featured three ties and three lead changes...Rose tied his career high in assists, first set on December 29, 2008 at New Jersey...Utah had lost four of its last five trips to the United Center prior to Tuesday's victory.

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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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