Not A Single Game To Watch
Ok, it was the first Sunday in 6 months with no football. Not a single game to watch, not a single game to bet on.
2007-01-29
Ok, it was the first Sunday in 6 months with no football. Not a single game to watch, not a single game to bet on. How depressing it was. The only thing there was to fill the time was some Super Bowl preview hype. No thanks. There was still one more week to go until the big game. Plenty of time to get into the hype. So for now, I’ll turn my Sunday betting time over to the NBA.
Today, I decided to place 3 separate $50 wagers on NBA games. Here were my picks:
Suns -5 at Cleveland
Suns/Cavs over 209
Knicks +1.5 at the Bucks.
The Suns/Cavaliers game was ABC’s game of the week so I got to dive into this contest headfirst in the afternoon. The Suns have been on a historic run for the past 3 months, winning 32 of their previous 34 games. The way I see it, I’m riding this bandwagon until someone forces me to get off the bus. They were on the road against one of the top Eastern conference teams, but I thought they were going to coast. The top teams in the East are still no match for the Western powerhouses. Neither team is defensive minded so I was expecting a shootout. As a rule of thumb, anytime the Suns are involved, if the line is 212 or under, I’m taking the over. So far, this theory has been quite prosperous for me.
Steve Nash scored 23 points and kept Phoenix's offense clicking on all cylinders with 15 assists as the Suns extended their winning streak to 17 games.
Phoenix's 17-game streak is tied for the fifth longest in NBA history, and with three more victories the Suns would match the second-best streak, a 20-gamer by the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks. Shawn Marion added 23 points, Amare Stoudemire 22 and Leandro Barbosa had 19 for the Suns, who improved to 34-4 since opening the season 1-5. This my friends, is what you call an unbeatable team.
James scored 30 points and Drew Gooden 19 to lead the Cavaliers, who were within four points going into the fourth. However, they couldn't match the Suns' blazing up-and-down pace and managed just 13 points in the final 12 minutes on 5-of-22 shooting.
With Nash on the bench getting some rest, the Suns led 91-87 after three periods before opening the fourth with a lay-up from Marion and consecutive 3-pointers from James Jones and Barbosa to make it 99-87 with 8:09 remaining.
Nash's made a twisting reverse lay-up, and moments later, fed Marion for a 3-pointer -- Phoenix's 13th -- to make it 107-94 with 3:44 remaining. At that point, it was all over for the Cavs. A few minutes later, they hit the over and I was a double winner for the game.
So I was already up $100 and playing with house money going into the Knicks / Bucks game. I love my Knicks and the Bucks were playing without Michael Redd, their best player. The Knicks however looked sluggish from the start and trailed the entire game. When the 4th quarter rolled around, they were down 12 points and with 6 minutes remaining, they just couldn’t get any closer. Then, it became Jamal time, as in Jamal Crawford. Coming off a 52 point effort in his last game, he scored 11 points in the 3rd and his 15 4th quarter points brought the Knicks all the way back. With .9 seconds left, he hit a 3-pointer to make it a 1-point game. All that I needed were the Bucks to inbound the ball and avoid a foul for 1 second. Of course, that didn’t happen and with .4 seconds left, Moe Williams was fouled. I needed him to miss both. Luckily for me, he missed the first and as a result, he was instructed to miss the 2nd on purpose so the clock would run out. He lined up to the far left of the free throw line and haphazardly threw it up. And then I almost threw up myself as the shot went in!! And I lost by half a point.
I was still up for the day, so at least it was a good NFL-less Sunday.
Till tomorrow, may all your bets be winners.
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