Bynum Carries Kobe With Clippers

Basketball Betting Lines

History and tradition still mean something and the Lakers will always play the role of big brother to the Clips, sort of like the Yankees, who own the backpage of New York's tabloids no matter what the Mets do.

 

But, occasionally the lesser sibling can rise up and best big bro. Think the Darryl Strawberry/Doc Gooden-era in Queens.

 

He passed Shaq midway through the second quarter making shot after shot with a degree of difficultly that would make an Olympic gymnast blush before Doug Collins decided to challenge his entire supporting cast in what turned out to be a 95-90 Sixers win.

 

Collins ran the Army, Navy and Marines at Kobe every time he touched the basketball and to his credit, Bryant did what you are supposed to do -- move the ball. The Lakers got a ton of open looks and made some but missed more than their share.

 

Talk about a lack of foresight -- remember as impressive as the milestone that Bryant passed tonight is, it's also a stark reminder that he is a lot closer to the end than the beginning.

 

He's obviously still one of the top players in the game, averaging a league- best 29.4 ppg coming into tonight's contest despite playing with a torn lunotriquetral ligament in his right wrist. But something is missing with these Lakers -- even with Bryant. The same air of invincibility is simply not there.

 

The Lakers certainly aren't the Washington Generals either but they no longer pack the kind of punch that scares anyone. The fact that the team is just 3-9 on the road should tell you all that you need to know.

 

With no Phil Jackson on the bench and no Lamar Odom coming off it, it's become payback time for a lot of routs that are still fresh in the minds of quite a few rivals.

 

Brown has only been able to count on three players this season as he implements a more defensive-minded system, Bryant and his two 7-footers, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. The rest of the team including battle-tested veterans Fisher and World Peace, has lacked consistency and offered little production.

 

The only young player that has stepped forward for LA this season is rookie guard Andrew Goudelock, a College of Charleston product that has flashed at times but has a very limited ceiling as a player.

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.