Sports Bets: Picks of the Day

Howdy sports fans. As a new installment here at ATA, I will be giving you sports gamble-holics (that means you Andy Shin) a handful of picks a few times a week, in either the NBA, NFL, or NCAA football. After each pick, I will label the pick with 1-5 stars, representing how strong of a pick this is. I will also keep a running tally of my wins and losses, thus giving you an idea of my credibility (or luck) as a sports analyst.

For those of you who are new to the sports betting world, I will give you a brief introduction to some of the terms. Anytime you see a plus or minus single or double digit number, this denotes the spread. The plus indicates underdog, the minus indicates favorite. For example, if you see -9 next to the San Antonio Spurs and a +9 next to the Los Angeles Lakers, you know that the Spurs are nine point favorites and the Lakers are nine point underdogs (likely because of crooked refs). When you are looking to bet on a team straight up, you look at the money line, which will again show a plus and a minus number, both indicating the same things as before. But unlike the spread, the money line shows you exactly how much your money will earn you. For underdogs, if you see +300, this means that every $100 that you bet, you will win $300 (if your underdog comes through, of course). For favorites, if you see -450, this means that you must wager $450 in order to win $100. Finally, the over/under aspect simply refers to the point total of the game. Pretty simple stuff.

1/16/09 NBA Games

1. New York Knicks (+2) @ Washington Wizards (-2). Coming off a 128-122 shootout at the Garden, New York now travels to Washington for a rematch. How were the lowly Wizards able to keep last night's game so close? By shooting 60% from the field, and 71% from 3. Nick Young dropped 33 points in 33 minutes and missed four shots out of a combined 24 shot attempts. Who wants to bet that this won't happen again? Sure the Knicks shot 54% and 54%, respectively, themselves, but NY is naturally a much more prolific three-point shooting team. Forget the fact that Washington's at home; the Knicks will still force their fast-tempo high-scoring style on the Wizards. For those of you who prefer statistics, here's one: Washington is 1-9 in games when the point total is >210. Last night, 250 points were scored. Good luck, Washington. Knicks straight up. ****

2. Milwaukee Bucks (-2) @ Sacramento Kings (+2). Ah, here's what we look for as sports bettors. Deviations from the norm that influence Las Vegas to release skewed lines and spreads. The Kings are absolutely terrible. Sure Kevin Martin has been injured all season, but they're still only 3-6 since his return, and one of those wins was against the Clippers (which shouldn't even count), so we'll say 2-6. What do I mean by deviation from the norm? I mean scoring 135 points when you only average 98. I mean managing to keep up with the high-flying Warriors for seven periods. I mean Brad Miller scoring 30 points and grabbing 22 rebounds (fantasy owners, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Milwaukee, on the other hand, is not a bad team. At 8-15 on the road, they have one more road win than Utah! Expect the Bucks to easily cover the generous 2 point spread that Vegas has gifted us this holiday season. ****

3. Orlando Magic (+4) @ Los Angeles Lakers (-4). Laker fans will curse me. Especially our very own Adriel Carolino, who, considering his immense sports knowledge, inexplicably believes that his beloved Lakers can do no wrong. Wake up Carolino, and world, the Lakers are not that good. Granted, Kobe is half-human half-god, but he is still half-human, which means he's not going to be able to bail out the Lakers with clutch baskets night after night. Who knows, maybe Bynum will actually be able to stick with Superman this time and stay in the game for more than 11 minutes? Maybe not. Magic straight up. ***