Nuggets visit Wolves without Karl

Basketball Betting Lines

03/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Without their head coach patrolling the sidelines, the Denver Nuggets will start up a four-game road trip tonight against a Minnesota Timberwolves team hoping to end a string of six straight losses when it takes the Target Center court.

The Nuggets enter this late-season trek, which also includes stops in New Orleans, Memphis and Houston, with George Karl remaining in Denver to undergo treatment for neck and throat cancer. The accomplished head coach hopes to be back behind the bench when the Nuggets visit the Hornets on Friday.

Denver will also be without leading rebounder Kenyon Martin due to a bout with tendinitis in his left knee. The former No. 1 overall pick has sat out the team's last two contests with the condition, but the Nuggets didn't seem to miss a step in either game, backing up a 122-114 home victory over Indiana on Friday with Sunday's 118-106 decision over Portland at the Pepsi Center.

Carmelo Anthony led the way with 30 points against the Blazers and J.R. Smith added 22 for Denver, which shot a sizzling 58.9 percent from the field to cap a perfect three-game homestand. Chauncey Billups contributed 21 points to the winning effort.

"To beat a team like [Portland] with basically having an 8-to-10 point lead most of the night is a great win for us," said Karl afterward.

The win kept the Nuggets at the top of the Northwest Division, with Utah lurking just one game off the pace in second place. Denver also trails Southwest leader Dallas by only one game for the No. 2 playoff seed in the Western Conference.

Denver will also likely be without rookie point guard Ty Lawson for a fifth straight outing because of a bruised left shoulder, while assistant coach Adrian Dantley is expected to take over Karl's duties for tonight's tilt.

The Nuggets may not need their full complement of players to handle the lowly Timberwolves, who occupy the basement of the West with a 14-50 record and extended their current slide with Monday's 125-112 setback to Dallas.

"Too many turnovers against a great team like that," said Minnesota's Al Jefferson in reference to his club's 26 giveaways. "They feed off turnovers."

Jefferson was one bright spot for the Timberwolves, with the standout forward racking up 36 points on 15-of-21 shooting while pulling down 13 rebounds. He had sat out Minnesota's previous two games due to a suspension for a recent DUI arrest.

The Timberwolves continue a four-game homestand that began with Saturday's 112-98 loss to Houston. Minnesota has lost its last six tests as the host and is just 9-23 at the Target Center this season.

Denver has won 11 of the last 12 meetings between these teams, including two of three matchups held this season, and is 5-0 over its last five trips to Minneapolis.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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