Suns ease past Kings

Basketball Betting Lines

02/12/2012 - Sacramento, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jared Dudley had 20 points and 10 rebounds as the Phoenix Suns eased past the Sacramento Kings, 98-84, at Power Balance Pavilion.

Steve Nash missed the second quarter after taking a shot to the face from Sacramento's Isaiah Thomas late in the first quarter as Thomas' arm flailed into Nash's head after running into a pick set by Marcin Gortat.

Nash, though, returned in the second half after getting four stitches in his lip and finished the game with four points and 15 assists in the Suns' fourth win in five games.

DeMarcus Cousins netted 26 points and Marcus Thornton dropped in 21 for the Kings, losers of two of their past three.

Phoenix opened the game with back-to-back baskets by Channing Frye and Grant Hill and never looked back, leading for the entire 48 minutes.

"Obviously, it was a great win for us. This team has been playing great basketball," Suns head coach Alvin Gentry said. "For us to play from start to finish like we did, I thought it was really good."

The Kings kept it close over the first four minutes of the game until an 8-2 spurt, capped by Dudley's three-point play, put the Suns ahead, 20-11, with five minutes left in the first.

Sacramento could not get closer than five for the remainder of the first and a pair of Michael Redd free throws gave Phoenix a 31-24 lead after one.

The Suns stretched their lead to double-digits early in the second without their starting point guard and kept the Kings at arm's length in a back-and- forth frame en route to a 53-44 halftime advantage.

Nash then returned for the third quarter and dished out six assists as Phoenix shot 11-for-18 from the floor, closing the quarter with a 10-6 swing that included six points from Gortat and three assists from Nash as the Suns took a 75-60 lead into the final stanza.

Phoenix held at least a 13-point lead for the entire fourth quarter.

"They play well as a team," Kings forward Chuck Hayes said about the Suns. "Everybody plays with their man, they play their strengths, nobody tries anything extra and they actually play really hard."

Game Notes

Suns rookie forward Markieff Morris recorded a career-high 18 points...Sacramento had won three straight home games entering Saturday. They Kings have not won four consecutive home games since November 25-December 2, 2009...Both teams struggled from long range, as the Suns shot 8-for-23 from three-point land and the Kings made 8-of-21 shots from beyond the arc.

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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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