Thunder hold on to top T-Wolves for first win
Basketball Betting Lines
11/03/2008 - Oklahoma City, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kevin Durant led a balanced scoring attack with 18 points to lead the Thunder to their first franchise win since relocating from Seattle in the offseason, as Oklahoma City edged Minnesota, 88-85, from the Ford Center.
Russell Westbrook had 14 points for the Thunder, who lost their first two games of the season. Jeff Green ended with 13 points and Nick Collison had 10 points and 10 boards.
Al Jefferson had 24 points and 12 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who have dropped two straight since a season-opening win over Sacramento. Craig Smith had 13 points and Ryan Gomes added 12 in defeat. Randy Foye had just two points and missed all 10 field goal attempts, but doled out six assists.
Off a Durant miss, the T-Wolves brought the ball down and Jefferson had a putback layup to give Minny an 85-84 lead with 2 1/2 minutes remaining.
After a Westbrook layup, Foye missed a layup that Green got a piece of and the Thunder brought the ball downcourt where Durant was fouled by Jefferson.
On the ensuing inbounds, Collison got the ball, drove the lane and dropped in a hook shot to make it 88-85 with 16.4 ticks left.
Following a timeout, the T-Wolves inbounded to Foye, who drove in and attempted a layup. The ball caromed out and Collison grabbed the rebound and worked it upcourt. Green was fouled, but missed both shots to keep it at a one-possession game.
With 6.6 seconds left, the T-Wolves still had life and called a timeout.
Minnesota inbounded the ball and worked it around to Gomes on the left wing. His three-pointer bricked off the iron as time expired, though, solidifying the win for the Thunder.
The teams played to a 20-20 tie after the first quarter, but the T-Wolves took a slight 47-46 lead at the break.
Consecutive baskets from Jefferson and Corey Brewer, followed by a three from Gomes gave the visitors a 54-46 lead 70 seconds into the third quarter.
The Thunder found themselves trailing by 10 with about a minute left in the third, though Westbrook connected on a three-point play to spark a 7-0 run to end the frame. Joe Smith also had a jumper and Desmond Mason's basket closed out the surge to send the game into the fourth with Minnesota leading just 73-70.
The teams traded buckets for the first half of the final frame and Collison's layup, followed by a Durant layup, gave Oklahoma City an 82-79 lead with 6:50 left in the game.
Moments later, a pair from Kevin Love at the line pulled Minnesota within 84-83.
Game Notes
Minnesota went 16-for-16 from the foul line, but faltered behind the arc, going 3-for-11 from downtown...The Thunder won the battle of the boards, 49-37...The Oklahoma City/Seattle franchise had won six straight games in the series before the Timberwolves defeated the SuperSonics 121-116 on March 14 in their final game in Seattle.
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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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