Millsap leads Jazz to home-and-home sweep of Clips

Basketball Betting Lines

11/04/2008 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paul Millsap scored 15 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter and the Utah Jazz cruised to a 89-73 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers in the back end of a home-and-home series from the Staples Center.

Millsap was 8-of-12 from the field with nine rebounds while Andrei Kirilenko notched a double-double with 15 points and 11 boards for the Jazz, who have claimed victory in each of their first three games this season despite being without star guard Deron Williams, who is out with an ankle injury.

"We're playing as a team with or without Deron," Millsap said. "I busted my but and it worked out for me. Hopefully I can continue to help my team."

Carlos Boozer scored 25 points and hauled in 10 rebounds, as the Jazz previously used a big second half to pummel the Clippers, 101-79, on Saturday in Salt Lake City.

The wins gave head coach Jerry Sloan his 997th and 998th wins at the helm of the Jazz. Sloan has 1,092 career NBA wins over the course of his 29-year coaching odyssey, the first three of which were spent in Chicago. Utah's next two games are at home against Portland on Wednesday and Friday vs. Oklahoma City.

Chris Kaman had a team-high 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Clippers, who have dropped their first four games to start the season.

Baron Davis returned from a sore hip and shot 5-of-15 from the field for 14 points and doled out nine helpers while Marcus Camby made his debut in a Clippers uniform, collecting five points and nine rebounds in almost 27 minutes. Camby sat out the preseason and LA's first three games with a heel injury.

"It was like riding a bike," Camby said of his return. "It was a good step for me. I felt a little winded out there but we're going to build from tonight."

Utah held a narrow lead, 36-35, at the half and the Clips stuck around in the third quarter with a three-ball from Davis tying the game, 57-57, with two minutes left in the third.

The Jazz went on a 10-3 run that bridged the third and fourth quarters and Millsap put on a one-man show down the stretch, with 15 straight points to lift the Jazz to victory.

Game Notes

The Clippers next take on the Lakers in a designated away game at the Staples Center...Boozer had 13 points and eight rebounds Monday...LA's Al Thornton contributed 11 points and seven boards...The Jazz have beaten the Clips seven of the last nine meetings...Attendance was 12,712.

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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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