Nuggets top Kings in OT on Afflalo's jumper

Basketball Betting Lines

02/02/2010 - Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Arron Afflalo poured in 12 points, including the game-winning jumper with 18.4 seconds left in overtime, as the Denver Nuggets stayed hot at home with a 112-109 victory over the Sacramento Kings at the Pepsi Center.

Kenyon Martin ended with 24 points and 12 rebounds for the Nuggets, who have won nine in a row at home. Chauncey Billups finished with 23 points and nine assists, Ty Lawson donated 15 points off the bench and Nene chipped in 14 points and six boards for Denver, which has won two straight and 10 of 11 overall.

The Nuggets played their fifth consecutive game without All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony, who is still nursing an ankle injury.

Spencer Hawes tallied 23 points and seven rebounds for the Kings, who have lost three in a row and 10 of 11 overall. Kevin Martin ended with 22 points, six assists, and five rebounds, while Omri Casspi chipped in 14 points for Sacramento, which has lost 10 consecutive road games.

The Nuggets ripped off six straight points early in overtime and went ahead 107-102 on a pair of Afflalo free throws with 3:11 remaining.

The Kings then responded with seven consecutive points, as Hawes' trey gave Sacramento a 109-107 edge with about 1 1/2 minutes to go.

The back-and-forth battle continued as the Nuggets scored the final five points of the extra session to claim victory. Nene's layup made it 109-109 and, following a Kevin Martin turnover, Afflalo made a baseline jumper with 18.4 ticks left to make it a two-point tilt.

Kevin Martin missed a jumper at the other end, and Billups made 1-of-2 from the line with 0.7 seconds remaining to seal the win.

The Nuggets started the fourth on a 14-3 run to take the lead. Afflalo's layup had Denver in front 87-81 with seven minutes remaining.

A Hawes jumper and pair of Kevin Martin free throws cut the deficit to 89-87 with less than 5 1/2 minutes to play in regulation.

Billups' layup had Denver ahead 99-95 with 55 seconds to go, but the Kings scored the final four points of the fourth to send the contest into overtime.

Casspi made a short jumper at the other end to cut the gap to two. Nene then turned the ball over at the opposite end of the floor, giving Sacramento a chance to tie or go in front.

Casspi's jumper was off the mark, but Hawes was there for the tip-in to tie the tilt at 99 with 27.9 seconds remaining.

Billups and Hawes each missed shots in the final seconds to send the game into OT.

The score was tied at 26-26 following 12 minutes of play. A pair of Lawson free throws have the Nuggets a 38-37 edge with 8:44 left in the second, but the Kings responded with a 27-10 run to build a large lead. Kevin Martin's trey had Sacramento ahead 64-48, and the score was 64-50 at the half.

Trailing 72-55 with 6 1/2 minutes remaining in the third, Denver closed the period on an 18-6 burst to get within five. Billups made two three-pointers during the flurry, which Lawson capped with a jumper to make it 78-73 heading to the fourth.

Game Notes

The Kings turned the ball over 19 times, leading to 25 Denver points...Sacramento outrebounded the Nuggets, 48-33...The Kings had won the first two games of the season series.

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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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