Daniels leads shorthanded Pacers past T'Wolves

Basketball Betting Lines

02/20/2009 - Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marquis Daniels notched 24 points on 11- of-18 shooting to help Indiana defeat Minnesota 112-105 and end the Pacers' 10-game road losing streak.

Jarrett Jack scored 18 and handed out five assists while Troy Murphy kicked in 16 points and 14 rebounds for a shorthanded Indiana team.

Pacers forward and leading scorer Danny Granger went down with a right foot injury during the second quarter of Wednesday's 103-94 loss at Charlotte. Granger, who leads Indiana with 25.0 ppg, will miss up to three weeks with a partial tendon tear in the foot.

T.J. Ford added 13 points and Brandon Rush 10 for Indiana, which is also toiling without sharp-shooting forward Mike Dunleavy, who is out indefinitely with a right knee injury. Dunleavy also missed the first 34 games of the season with the injury.

The Pacers, who have alternated wins and losses over the last eight games, are just 7-23 away from Conseco Fieldhouse this season with their last previous road victory coming in Phoenix back on January 7.

Randy Foye dropped a career-high 36 points on 13-of-23 shooting, including a 5-of-8 performance from three-point range, in defeat. Ryan Gomes had 26 points and Mike Miller 18, eight rebounds and five assists for Minnesota, which is riding a five-game home losing streak.

The Timberwolves have just two victories in their last 11 games and have dropped three of four since leading scorer Al Jefferson was lost for the season with a torn ACL in his right knee.

Indiana jumped out to a 33-26 lead after 12 minutes and grabbed a 61-48 halftime advantage behind Daniels' 12 first-half points.

Minnesota opened the second half with a purpose, and seven straight T'Wolves points from Gomes followed by a Foye triple had the hosts within six. Gomes and Foye logged back-to-back field goals moments later for a 67-62 affair, but consecutive baskets by Daniels preceded a Murphy three-ball, and another deuce from Daniels stretched the margin to 12, 76-64.

A Travis Diener three-pointer closed out the frame and gave the Pacers a 15- point advantage, 86-71, a lead they would only strengthen early in the fourth.

A Roy Hibbert jumper with 8 1/2 minutes to go provided a 20-point lead, although the T'Wolves would embark on an ensuing 15-4 run that would set the table for a run at the lead.

A pair of Foye three-pointers that followed had the hosts drawing closer at 102-97 with 1:26 on the clock but Sebastian Telfair made just 1-of-2 at the line while Daniels sank a jumper on the other end. Jack helped prevent the comeback with a perfect 6-of-6 showing at the line, and Murphy added two more from the stripe to hold off Minnesota.

Game Notes

Minnesota defeated Indiana, 116-111, on February 3 this season and had won five of the last seven meetings entering Friday's action. In addition, Indiana had lost three straight and four of its last five as the visitor in this series...The T'Wolves will also host the LA Lakers during their brief two-game homestand and are 8-18 at the Target Center in 2008-09...Telfair followed up a career-high 30-point performance on Wednesday with just five points on 1-of-9 shooting...Minnesota made a minor move Thursday, picking up forward Shelden Williams and reserve point guard Bobby Brown from Sacramento in exchange for swingman Rashad McCants and seldom-used center Calvin Booth.

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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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