Hawks visit lowly Nets

Basketball Betting Lines

03/16/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Atlanta Hawks will hit the road for two straight games starting with tonight's showdown against the lowly New Jersey Nets at the IZOD Center.

Atlanta will visit Toronto as well and is 16-16 as the guest this season. It is currently third in the Eastern Conference standings, just a half-game ahead of Boston, and has won two straight and eight of the last 11 games. In a 112-99 victory versus Detroit on Saturday from Philips Arena, Joe Johnson finished with 26 points and Josh Smith added 18 and a career-high 11 assists for the Hawks, who shot a season-high 63 percent.

"Any time we can come out of the gate like that, it gives us confidence throughout the game," said Johnson, who is expected to miss Tuesday's game with an Achilles injury. "That makes us a tough team to beat. When you've got to play catch-up on the road like that, it's always tough."

Sixth Man of the Year candidate Jamal Crawford made all three of his long- distance attempts on his way to 17 points in a winning effort.

New Jersey will try to put the brakes on an 11-game home losing streak this evening versus the Hawks, and has dropped four in a row overall. The Nets fell to 7-59 this season after Saturday's 116-108 loss at Houston in which Courtney Lee posted 24 points to lead the charge. Over his last seven games, Lee is averaging 20.6 ppg.

Brook Lopez posted a double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds for New Jersey, which is trying desperately to avoid finishing with the worst record in NBA history, set by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (9-73).

"It was a combination of their effort and our lack of effort," Lopez said on NBA.com. "They moved the ball real well on us, and that was the difference."

In injury news for the Nets, guard Devin Harris (illness) is listed as questionable for Tuesday's game.

Atlanta has won the first two meetings with New Jersey this season and three in a row overall. The Nets, however, are unbeaten in the previous five matchups as the host in this series.

The Hawks have lost 14 of their last 15 games in the Meadowlands.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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