Road-weary Hornets visit Nuggets

Basketball Betting Lines

03/18/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sole possession of second place in the Western Conference is on the line for the Denver Nuggets tonight as they get ready to host the reeking New Orleans Hornets.

Denver is currently deadlocked with idle Dallas for the No. 2 seed in the West, four games behind the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers.

Most recently for the Nuggets, Carmelo Anthony scored 29 points and grabbed 12 rebounds on Tuesday, as Denver battled back to upend the Washington Wizards, 97-87, at the Pepsi Center.

The game marked the return of Nuggets head coach George Karl to the bench. Karl missed the team's four-game road trip over the past week as he continued chemotherapy and radiation treatments for neck and throat cancer. Denver was 3-1 on the trek under lead assistant Adrian Dantley.

"We know it's a tough task for him to go through," Anthony said of Karl's condition. "For him to come in and see us and uplift his spirits, it makes us feel good."

J.R. Smith added 17 points off the bench against the Wizards and Nene chipped in 16 for the Nuggets, winners in seven of their last eight overall.

Denver has been playing well despite the absence of two key contributors, starting power forward KenyonMmartin and rookie guard Ty Lawson. Martin has been sidelined since March 5 with a balky left knee and Lawson has been struggling with a bruised left shoulder. Both will remain on the sidelines tonight while big man Chris Andersen, who sprained his ankle in a loss at Houston on Monday, will be a game-time decision.

The Hornets, meanwhile, continue to falter, falling to 1-2 on a five-game road trip last night in Oakland. Anthony Tolliver registered a career-high 30 points in that one, as the Golden State Warriors rallied from down 21 late in the third quarter for a 131-121 triumph over New Orleans.

The Hornets were led by David West's 36 points and season-high 15 rebounds, while rookie Darren Collison added 20 points and 14 assists to help build a seemingly comfortable 87-66 lead with 5:36 to go in the third before dropping their fourth game in the last five.

New Orleans is a dismal 8-15 since losing All-Star point guard Chris Paul to a knee injury and is now an almost insurmountable eight games behind Portland for the final playoff spot in the West with just 13 left to be played.

Denver has topped New Orleans in two of the three contests between the two clubs this season, including a 116-110 overtime win in the Rockies on Jan. 23.

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Albert Pujols to be This Year's Home Run Champ Says Online Sportsbook

Barry Bonds is a 50-1 long shot to be this year's home run champ odds.  The favorite to be this year's home run champ is none other than Albert Pujols, however.

Now that Barry Bonds is signed and in Giants camp, it is on to his pursuit of all of sports most prestigious records: the all-time home run mark. Bonds sits just 21 homers shy of tying Hank Aaron for the career mark at 755. Word out of Giants’ camp is that Bonds is the healthiest he has been in a few years. Bonds is just two seasons removed from his injury riddled 2005 campaign where he played in only 14 games and hit only 5 home runs. He did come back last year and had a solid season hitting .270 with 26 bombs. All eyes will be on Bonds this spring and summer not only because of his home run chase but his highly publicized steroid abuse allegations. If and when Bonds breaks the record, he surely will not get the positive attention one should for breaking a record that was once thought of as “unbreakable”. Despite Bonds decent season last year, he is just 50-1 at MySportsbook.com to lead the MLB in long balls this season.

Not surprisingly, the favorites to go deep the most times this season are Albert Pujols 5-1, Ryan Howard 6-1, David Ortiz 8-1 and Alex Rodriguez 12-1. With 49 homers, Pujols finished second in the National League behind Howard (58). Pujols is considered the favorite due to the consistent power numbers that he has posted since breaking into the league in 2001. Also one must consider the fact that he played in 16 fewer games then Howard did due to an injury. Howard smashed 58 homers in his first complete season of big league play en route to the National League MVP odds award. He silenced his critics by successfully hitting left-handed pitching. Howard also displayed the ability to use his power to the opposite field. Two attributes which should keep Howard amongst the league leaders in long balls for years to come. From the American League representatives, David Ortiz leads the field. Ortiz was second in the majors last year with 54 home runs. Except for 1999 when he only played in 10 games, Ortiz has improved on his home run numbers each year he has been in the majors (1997).

Be sure to log onto online sports betting site MySportsbook.com to check out the odds for who will lead the MLB in home runs this season. Below is just a sample of the players listed. With the highest credit card rates in the industry, MySportsbook.com is the place to bet on baseball this summer.

World Series odds

Adam Dunn 15-1

Albert Pujols 5-1

Alex Rodriguez 12-1

Alfonso Soriano 15-1

Andruw Jones 25-1

Barry Bonds 50-1

Carlos Delgado 40-1

David Ortiz 8-1

Jermaine Dye 40-1

Ken Griffey Jr. 100-1

Lance Berkman 40-1

Manny Ramirez 20-1

Richie Sexson 40-1

Ryan Howard 6-1

Travis Hafner 20-1

Vladimir Guerrero 40-1

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com - this sportsbook accepts credit cards.

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.