Allen's sweet stroke saves Celtics

Basketball Betting Lines

06/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There is nothing more deflating for an NBA team than watching a great shooter get a good look from the three-point line.

The ball comes off the hand and almost seems frozen in time for a second or two before splashing through the net, never touching the cylinder.

It's an almost helpless feeling.

At some point in the NBA Finals, you knew the Boston Celtics were going to exploit a mismatch in the backcourt.

Kobe Bryant may be the best on-ball defender in professional basketball but the aging Derek Fisher was going to have trouble matching up with either Rajon Rondo or Ray Allen.

As one of the best shooters in the history of the game, a date with Bryant's torturous defense used to be a virtual guarantee for Allen, but the emergence of Rondo has made things difficult for Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

It's almost a "pick your poison" type of decision for Jackson. Kobe can stifle just about anyone but if you put him on Rondo, Allen is going to get a lot of open looks. Shut down Ray's outside shooting, and you open up the lane for Rondo's penetration.

Jackson was clearly more concerned with Rondo's ability to get to the rim, and made his decision to place Bryant on Rondo in Game 1.

"Teams have done that all year," Boston coach Doc Rivers said. "It's nothing new putting a big guy on Rondo and a small guy on Ray. And every time we do that we feel we can give Ray shots."

Jackson's roll of the dice worked and the Lakers earned a rather emphatic Game 1 victory as Allen struggled with foul trouble and was unable to take advantage of the 6-foot-1 Fisher's spotty defense.

"The other night was frustrating," Allen said of Game 1 "It was tough just trying to adjust the referees on the sideline. Physically I felt great. I was getting to the spots I needed to, just never really got in a great rhythm."

The NBA playoffs are all about adjustments between contests. Jackson stood pat in Game 2 and Rivers made sure his team understood what went wrong, reminding his players there was a significant mismatch to exploit. The result was Allen setting an NBA Finals record by sinking eight three-point shots in a 103-94 Game 2 win over the Lakers.

"I'm trying not to do too much," Allen said when describing Rivers' game plan. "Getting Fisher, run him off screens and forcing their bigs to help. That's somewhat the thought process. Making a hard cut from one side of the basket to the other."

Allen made his first seven from long range in the first half of Game 2 on the way to an incredible 27-point effort by halftime, boosting the Celtics to a 54-48 advantage.

"I thought they (Lakers) did everything they could to keep me from shooting threes and they worked tirelessly," Allen said. "We were setting great screens and I was getting to my spots."

The Lakers adjusted their defense on Allen after the first half but the damage was done. A deflated Celtics team was rejuvenated and able to take advantage of Bryant's own foul trouble to hold off LA.

"He was unbelievable," Pierce said of Allen. "He just came out here and shot lights out. You could tell he was frustrated from the last game because of the foul trouble and I think he showed us that Ray Allen is a future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest shooters to ever play."

Allen canned the record breaker with 4:40 left in the third quarter, helping Boston even the best-of-seven series and seize home-court advantage. He finished the game with 32 points, going 8-of-11 from three-point range, breaking the mark he shared with Houston's Kenny Smith (1995) and Chicago's Scottie Pippen (1997).

"I don't know what record it is that people are telling me that I got, but it's great to have," Allen said after the game. "Great to be able to look back on it and say I did that. This is definitely the time. There is no better place, moment or time to play a game, to win a game than the finals."

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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