Put some money on Denver tonight

Knee's are jerking for NBA fans everywhere today. The Suns beat the Spurs. In the regular season.

It's easy to write this off as just another fluky NBA game. The Spurs weren't very sharp. This is game three of a four games in five nights stretch for them, so the loss could be pinned on fatigue and whatnot. It wouldn't be shocking to see San Antonio drop their third straight tonight against Denver.

For some reason San Antonio is favored by 7 points tonight against Denver. I don't feel confident enough to take the Nuggets winning outright. Especially considering their road record (12-18) against the Spurs home record (26-5), but Denver just scores too many points to get beat handily tonight. I would really have no interest in this game if it were Spurs -3.5, but -7 seems like quite a reach for a team that looked tired last night.

I didn't want to just write about gambling and tonights lines, but I see another one now that I can't pass up. Houston and New Jersey. The over on 192 seems extremely favorable. Houston's been putting up about 110 a game since Yao got hurt.


I wanted to write about the Suns and the Spurs, but I'll get to that tomorrow. Gambling is more important today.

Yao had it coming.

Everyone should have seen this from a mile away.

Yao plays alongside Dikembe Mutombo, who has inflicted more personal injury than base jumping throughout his career, and Tracy Mcgrady, who doesn't smash skulls quite like Dikembe, but possesses the rare superpower of drawing freak injuries to his teammates.

I don't think Cal Ripken Jr. would have ever made it out of AA ball if he were coming up alongside McGrady, that's how powerful a force of injury this guy is.

The good news is that we may not have to suffer through seven grueling first round games with the Rockets just to see inevitable failure.

The 2007-08 NBA Season - The Beautiful Game

I can't stop watching basketball. In the past weeks it's become a gripping addiction.

I found myself watching the Houston Chicago game last night, two teams that I almost despise watching. I think there are even some fans of the two who would agree that neither team plays a particularly exciting brand of basketball. But I had to watch.

How were Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden going to fit in Chicago? Can the Rockets keep their remarkable play going (no matter how many games they win, it's still not all that exciting to watch)? I was amazed by how quickly easily I could get sucked into this game, and a testament to just how good this NBA season is. To answer my previous questions, the Bulls new players fit in fairly well, and the Bulls as a team continued to play fairly not quite good (that's the only way I can describe it). Houston on the other hand is continuing it's streak of brilliant play by being the most boring western conference team to watch. I can't wait for the Rockets to drag out the first round to seven excruciating games so they can lose again. By game 5 every NBA fan in the country (outside of Houston) will be hoping for the series to just be over already. I can't wait!

I had to watch the Cavs play a mostly terrible Memphis team to find out how the new players would fit together and to begin to answer the burning question in Cleveland and Chicago, was Ben Wallace cartering it with the Bulls? (For those unfamiliar with the verb "cartering" it is defined as; losing interest, giving up, forfeiting effort, turning cities and countries against you. That's right ladies and gentlemen, Vince Carter is now a verb!)

The answer was a resounding "maybe."

I even had to watch the entirety of the blowout that was the Suns - Pistons game. Mostly to watch the results of this Shaq experiment unfold. Something that I'm slowly drawing conclusions upon that I'll touch on after I've watched a few more games. Partly to find out exactly how the Pistons are good. Everyone I ask about this looks at me like I'm crazy. Like it's just a given that the Detroit Pistons are a good basketball team. For some reason I'm still not sold, record, statistics and other objective measures be damned!

Then there was the Lakers - Sonics game. I don't care how loathed the Lakers may around many parts of the country. Any basketball fan should be watching them every chance they get because they are simply playing an exceedingly beautiful brand of basketball right now.

Jason Kidd has 32 assists in his last two games, grabbing 17 of them last night. To say that my interest has been piqued would be putting it mildly, even though I really didn't like the trade for Dallas, and still don't.

None of this even takes into account that the pre-trade deadline media darling, the Boston Celtics, were in action against an intriguing Portland team.

Just another night in the 2007-08 NBA regular season.