Rockets, Spurs square off in Houston

Basketball Betting Lines

11/29/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Rockets will try to get back on the winning track tonight when they host the San Antonio Spurs at the Toyota Center.

The Rockets had their three-game winning streak come to an end with Wednesday's 91-90 home loss to the Indiana Pacers. Ron Artest scored 19 points and Yao Ming finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds for Houston.

Luis Scola contributed 15 points and 18 rebounds while Carl Landry had 15 and 10 boards in the win. The Rockets played without Tracy McGrady, who sat out the game with left knee soreness. McGrady is listed as questionable for Saturday's game.

Forward Shane Battier (ankle) is also questionable against San Antonio.

The Spurs, meanwhile, have won four straight and seven of eight games, including Friday's 109-98 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies at the AT&T Center. Tony Parker had 15 points and seven assists in his first game back after missing nine contests with a sprained ankle.

Parker originally suffered the injury in the first quarter of a 99-83 loss to the Miami Heat on November 7. Roger Mason added 20 points and five assists while George Hill and Michael Finley scored 12 points apiece for San Antonio.

Tim Duncan ended with 11 points and 12 boards in a winning effort.

San Antonio has won three in a row on the road.

Houston suffered a 77-75 loss at San Antonio on November 14 this season. The Spurs have won 11 of the last 15 meetings in this series.

San Antonio has lost two straight after winning its last four at Houston.

Lasveags Basketball Betting News

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(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will take their show to the road tonight against the Milwaukee Bucks at the Bradley Center. The Cavaliers have won four straight to improve to 13-3 this season and handed the Go

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.









FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.