The Miami Heat, the most hated team in NBA history, takes it’s show on the road tonight and will be small favorites in it’s third game against the Indiana Pacers. Most sports books have the Heat as 2 point favorites. Game total has come down from 182 and is at 180.5 at most shops.
This is a crucial game for the Miami Heat, who lost home court advantage in Tuesday’s loss to the Pacers. The team is still without forward Chris Bosh, who remains out with an abdominal strain. The Heat got into early foul trouble in game 2, with both Mario Chalmers and Rony Turiaf picking up early fouls. The Heat clearly need a better game from Chalmers, who shot very poorly in the last game.
What will the Heat do without Chris Bosh?
Rony Turiaf had a whopping 3 points in his absence.
When LeBron James has 28 points, 5 assists, and 9 boards, it’s hard to ask for anything more. When you chip in Wade’s 24 points, it’s clear that other players must contribute. Mario Chalmers, that means you. Shane Battier, that means you.
This will spell big time trouble if the Heat don’t get a victory tonight. Game starts at 7 EST from Indy.
The NBA Playoffs are in the second round, and we’ve had some surprises thus far. The #1 seed Chicago Bulls lost to the Philadelphia 76′ers, in large part because of the torn ACL suffered by their star and last year’s MVP Derrick Rose. The 76′ers are tied with the Boston Celtics 1-1 in what looks to be a series that will go at least 6 games. The Miami Heat gave up home court advantage last night without Chris Bosh in the line-up. Miami, who controlled most of the game up until the 4th quarter, goes to Indiana now tied with the Pacers at one game apiece.
On the West Side, two of the favorites are off to flying starts. The Spurs are already up 1-0 on the Clippers, who knocked off Memphis in round one as underdogs. The Oklahoma City Thunder, who swept defending champion Dallas in round one, demolished the Los Angeles Lakers in game one and head into game two tonight as a large favorite of 8 points at home. Tonight the Celtics remain in Philly to re-match the 76′ers, who are favored by two points.
Tomorrow night, the Pacers are one point underdogs to the Miami Heat and will certainly have a chip on their shoulder after knocking off the mighty Heat in South Beach on Tuesday. Immediately afterwards, the Spurs host the Clippers and attempt to go up 2-0 as they are big favorites, yielding 11 points to the visiting Clippers.
What match-up does everyone want to see in the NBA Finals?
The Official World Golf Rankings up through the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass are below. Matt Kuchar held off a charging field to take home the title last weekend in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which moved him to a career high #5 on the World Golf Ranking.
The rest of the rankings are below.
Rory McIlroy
Luke Donald
Lee Westwood
Bubba Watson
Matt Kuchar
Hunter Mahan
Tiger Woods
Steve Stricker
Martin Kaymer
Phil Mickelson
Players who had great tournaments last weekend that are not in the top ten include Ricky Fowler, who is ranked #18 after 19 weeks. Also scoring well was Zach Johnson, ranked #27, and Kevin Na, who is ranked at #49. Na had a rather difficult final round after carrying a one stroke lead at -12 opening up the Sunday final round. Na was constantly criticized for his mental instability at being able to hit the ball in a short amount of time. Time and time again, Na approached the ball, took practice swings, and backed off. After a great three days, Na broke down on Sunday and was clearly agitated. At one point, some unruly fans even started heckling Na, by singing the famous “Na, na, na, na….hey, hey……good-bye.!” That stuff is usually reserved for the basketball court and hockey rink and frankly has no place in golf, but it’s worth mentioning. Here’s to hoping Kevin Na works out the kinks and returns to form very soon.
Next up on the golf circuit is the HP Byron Nelson Championship this weekend. The experts at PGATour.com have listed favorites as Adam Scott, Keegan Bradley, Phil Mickelson, Johnson Wagner, and Matt Kuchar. The sportsbooks seem to agree for the most part, with Mickelson being the main favorite, followed by Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar, Jason Day, and Keegan Bradley rounding out the top five. Johnson Wagner gets some serious value at +5300 at one location. It’ll be interesting to see if the pro’s at PGATour.com have picked a gem this week!
The NHL’s Eastern Conference Finals are here, and it’s a battle of neighbors with the New York Rangers facing off against the New Jersey Devils. Game one starts at eight o’clock tonight in Madison Square Garden. The Rangers had a highly competitive stories against the Washington Capitals, going seven games. The Devils made quick work of the Philadelphia Flyers, winning the series in Philly four games to one.
The focus of this series, other than the obvious border battle, will be the goaltenders. With two high profile net-minders, the series just may be decided by the better goaltender. Martin Brodeur, the backbone of the Devils for so long, will battle Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers star goalie who held the Washington Capitals prolific scoring offense in check.
These two teams know each other well and the series should be a good one. The Rangers survived two seven game series already, and the Devils, after going seven games with a feisty Florida Panther team, are the fresher team after their quick series with the Flyers.
The Rangers are a slight favorite to win the series, with a -128 series price to the Devils +116.
Baseball handicapping is supposed to be the easiest of all the major sports. It’s one of the only seasons where a sportsbook expects to lose on a year-in, year-out basis. Sometimes they catch a nice profit, but it’s really a crap shoot as far as they are concerned. Both the favorites AND underdogs can contribute to the losses, which is very odd. We’ll break that down later, and even add reasoning of why this can happen, but for now we want to recap some major story lines from the first part of the 2012 season.
The Good:
The Marlins opened a new stadium, and it’s among the most beautiful in sports. Sure, “that’s just a stadium,” many people say. But take a trip there and hang out for a game, and it’ll change the way you want your home town baseball stadium to look, feel, and cater to you.
Bryce Harper is here! His first major league stolen base was shortly after. The Nationals catcher did it in style by stealing home plate!
As of today, May 8, there are some surprisingly hot starts. Baltimore, Cleveland, and Washington all lead their divisions.
St Louis (18-11) leads the NL Central WITHOUT Albert Pujols. (More on him later.)
The Bad:
Albert Pujols has one home run. That’s an expensive player to only get one home run in just over 100 at bats. Pujols is off to (officially) the worst start of his career.
Mariano Rivera, the best closer in MLB history, tore his ACL shagging foul balls. That’s a tough way to lose a legendary player. Here’s to hoping Mo returns for an encore.
Speaking of closers, Marlins closer and expensive off-season acquisition Heath Bell is off to a rocky start and recently lost his role as closer for the team. This was not expected, and Ozzie Guillen said on Miami radio that “Bell is very embarrassed.”
Minnesota is off to a 7-21 start and is officially the worst team in baseball.
What can we take away from this?
It’s May, so don’t worry. However, if you have been betting on teams that were big favorites coming into the season, such as the Angels, Phillies, and Red Sox, odds are you are probably down a decent amount of cash. But fear no more – teams that open the season as a potential division winner only to flounder in April come back strong in May. Just be sure to check the injury reports because in the cases of the Phillies and Red Sox they are getting thin in some parts of the roster.
That’s a quick update on MLB 2012. Please add comments on the season and be sure to tell us how you are doing this season.
The 2012 Major League Baseball season is set to be as exciting as ever. With a new playoff system allowing two extra teams a shot at the playoffs, tradition is finally bucked! Pushing aside the debate on whether that was the right move or not, we had one of the busiest free agent off-seasons in the history of the game. We break down each division and provide a full Major League Baseball season analysis including predictions on who will win each division.
Starting in the American League, in perhaps the only division that can expect a three way race for the Division title. Boston and New York continue to be the favorites, with most everyone placing Tampa Bay behind them as the third favorite. The upstart Toronto Blue Jays are always a threat, and can’t be counted out. Expect the Blue Jays to be an above 500 team this year.
The American League Central has a clearer cut favorite: The Detroit Tigers. Adding All-Star first baseman Prince Fielder certainly gives the Tigers a line-up with more clout than any other ballclub in the division. Opposing pitchers will have a hard time getting past Fielder and Miguel Cabrera, two of the game’s biggest power hitters. Most odds makers have the White Sox, Indians, Royals, and Twins losing more games than they win, making this division the weakest in the game. However, history shows us that this division has produced miracles, including the Twins worst to first run in 1991 and the White Sox World Series title in 2005. The Twins hope All-Stars Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer return to form after both were hampered by injuries during a lackluster 2011 season.
The AL West should be a great race with two lead dogs in Texas and Los Angeles. Unless you’ve lived under a rock the last year, you know the Angels added Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, two of the top free agent targets this past off-season. However, the mighty Texas Rangers, fresh off of an epic World Series loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, will be hungry to get back to the championship series. To make up for the loss of C.J. Wilson, the Rangers signed Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish to a six year contract. The Oakland Athletics added an uncharacteristic splash this off-season, adding Cuban player Yoenis Cespedes as well as the recently unretired Manny Ramirez. While it’s not clear if Cespedes will play in the bigs right away, we do know that Manny will serve a 50 game suspension before joining the club on game day. The Seattle Mariners remain the favorites to finish in last place for what seems like the 10th year in a row.
The National League landscape changed a bit, but no more than the NL East. The ex-Florida and now “Miami” Marlins made perhaps the biggest splash. Starting at the top, the team hired Ozzie Guillen as Manager and subsequently signed pitcher Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes, and closer Heath Bell. An already powerful line-up with Hanley Ramirez and Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton gets to hit balls from a beautiful new ballpark located in the former digs of the Miami Orange Bowl. Adding even more flair to the roster is the always enigmatic Carlos Zambrano. If this team stays in control, it could be a huge year for the Miami Marlins.
The division favorite remains the Philadelphia Phillies, who added closer Jonathan Papelbon to the roster. The team’s aces are well known, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels is a #1 on many MLB teams. The team added Juan Pierre and Jim Thome to their line-up this off-season and continue to be the team to beat. Meanwhile, everyone’s eyes in Washington are on Steven Strasburg, who returns from an injury. Catcher Wilson Ramos is more experienced and expected to be the opening day starter. The team also signed Brad Lidge, the Phillies ex-closer. The Mets remain in shambles, and unless you count Scott Hairston, the Mets looked rather idle in free agency. Mets fans, you can give thanks in part to Bernie Madoff.
The National League Central lost a lot of power when Albert Pujols took his talents to the American League. They are still; however, a top team in this division and with Milwaukee should compete for the division title. Who could forget, St. Louis is the defending world champion? Chris Carpenter returns after missing the championship season, and his performance will be vital to fending off Milwaukee. The Reds, Cubs, and Pirates remain the teams on the outside looking in, but with Theo Epstein in Chicago, we won’t be quick to write off the Cubbies just yet. The Astro’s should finish in the cellar. Is anyone surprised?
Finally, the NL West. The Giants are the favorites, but it’s not by much. The Dodgers and D-backs are on their heels and should provide healthy competition. In what should be the tightest division, the Rockies and Padres can’t be counted out. Expect this to be the closest race and offer many close games.
Playoff Predictions: Yankees vs. Phillies meet in the World Series.
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