20 Points Stephen Highlight Smash Down Team

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Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It wasn't the homecoming he would have liked but win or lose these days Indiana coach Frank Vogel has made Pacers basketball relevant again. Vogel, who grew up in Wildwood Crest, a Jersey shore town about 70 miles southeast of Philadelphia, brought his club into the City of Brotherly Love on Monday and came up a little short against a Sixers team that, much like his own, is one of the most improved in the Eastern Conference.

 

"A great win for our guys," Philadelphia coach Doug Collins said after escaping with the win. "Indiana is a very tough team to play against. Their size in the paint causes a lot of problems. Their length on the wings is really impressive."

 

"It's just surreal," Vogel said before the game about returning to Philadelphia. "I pinch myself on a daily basis that I'm even doing this. I keep it all in perspective and try to do the best I can. I believe in my ability to do this job at a high level."

 

Vogel, an early '90s Wildwood High School graduate that once appeared on David Letterman's Stupid Human Tricks as an 8th grader, had already coached the Pacers in Newark against the Nets and in Madison Square Garden against the Knicks but Monday was the first time he reached Philly as an NBA head coach. He brought along about 20 friends and family members to mark the occasion.

 

Instead Vogel changed the fortunes of the club when he took over for the surly O'Brien, piloting the Pacers to a 20-18 mark and a playoff berth for the first time since 2006, a competitive five-game affair with the mighty Chicago Bulls.

 

It's almost hard to understand how an affable coach like Vogel sat under O'Brien's learning tree. But that's the thing about Vogel, he's a pragmatist. He saw how far O'Brien's my way or the highway approach got and shifted gears. At the same time he soaked in the tortured genius' basketball acumen and incorporated that into his repertoire.

 

"We're looking to take the next step," Vogel said. "We're a team that's entering its prime. We're young, but we're not a bunch of rookies."

 

Oakland, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Golden State Warriors updated the condition of guard Stephen Curry. who continues to be sidelined with a sprained right ankle. "Stephen Curry was examined by Warriors Team Orthopaedist Tim McAdams on Saturday, January 7, prior to our game in Oakland and again by Dr. Bob Anderson yesterday in Charlotte, NC. Following the examinations and consultations with both doctors, the diagnosis of Stephen's injury remains a sprained right ankle with no structural damage," said Warriors general manager Larry Riley in a statement issued on Tuesday.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.