Mavs kick off road trip in Oakland vs. Warriors
Basketball Betting Lines
02/08/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Southwest Division-leading Dallas Mavericks will hit the road for three games starting with Monday's contest against the Golden State Warriors at ORACLE Arena.
Dallas will also visit Denver and Oklahoma City on the road trip, and owns a 16-10 mark outside of Big D this season. It has lost four of its last five games, including Friday's 117-108 setback versus the Minnesota Timberwolves at American Airlines Center.
Dirk Nowitzki finished with 21 points and eight rebounds for the Mavericks, who lost to the Timberwolves for the first time since January 4, 2006. Nowitzki didn't get the start because he was late for shootaround. Jason Terry tallied 20 points, while Rodrigue Beaubois added a season-high 17 points off the bench in defeat.
"We're not going to be good until we play hard," Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said. "But look, they shot 55 percent in the first quarter, the second quarter was by far our best when they shot 43 and we did a much better job, more proactive. They shot 60 in the third and 55 in the fourth. Those numbers don't lie. We had another disappointing loss."
Terry has started the last nine games and has scored 20-plus points in six of those for the Mavs, who are an NBA-best 14-4 in games after a loss.
Golden State will try to put the brakes on an eight-game losing streak tonight and will resume a three-game homestand. In a 104-95 setback versus the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday, Corey Maggette scored 24 points and rookie Stephen Curry tallied 23 points for the Warriors, who got 11 points and a career-high 11 boards from Anthony Tolliver.
"Not a good performance by us today, we just didn't look like a team tonight," Warriors coach Don Nelson said. "I had a lot of guys that didn't play well and all at the same time. When you turn the ball over 23 times in this league it makes it pretty hard to stay competitive. There will be nights like this, but we will lick our wounds tomorrow and get ready to play."
Andris Biedrins had 18 rebounds in defeat and Monta Ellis scored 15 points. Nelson is still 11 wins away from breaking Lenny Wilkens all-time record. He is the second-winningest coach in NBA history (1,322), trailing only Wilkens (1,332).
The Warriors, who haven't won since beating New Jersey on January 22, will also host the Los Angeles Clippers and are 9-14 in Oakland this season.
The 2009-10 season series between Dallas and Golden State is tied at a game apiece. These two teams have split the previous 18 encounters.
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Football Betting Sportsbook Accepts Credit Cards
Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.
As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.
The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.
Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).
But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.
Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.
Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1
Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2
New York Giants - 9 - 2
Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).
Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.
So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.
And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.
They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.
Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.
But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.
Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.
Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.
Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.
Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?
Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.
In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.
Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.
Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.
The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.
The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.
Visit MySportsbook.com for free sportsbook odds RSS feeds go to MySportsbook.com for all your betting football needs.