Celtics visit Cavs for Game 1 of East semis

Basketball Betting Lines

05/01/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The incidental stuff has been taken care of.

Now, the top- seeded Cleveland Cavaliers and the veteran-laden Boston Celtics are preparing to do some heavy lifting, as the teams meet in the Eastern Conference semifinals in a rematch from two years ago when the Celtics survived in seven games on their way to an NBA championship.

Both clubs finished off their opening round opponents this year in just five games, as Cleveland dispensed of Central Division rival Chicago, while the Celtics sent the Miami Heat back to South Beach.

With the 4-1 series victory over Chicago, Cleveland reached the East semifinals for a fifth straight season. The Celtics, meanwhile, are toiling in the semis for a third consecutive year.

The Cavs suffered a bit of a scare in their Game 5 clincher. Superstar LeBron James, who will be awarded his second straight MVP trophy on Sunday in his hometown of Akron, had to fight through a right elbow injury as he narrowly missed his second straight triple-double in the set. By the end of the game, James was shooting a free throw using his left hand.

"I've never had a problem with my elbow before," James said. "Probably minor stuff in the past. I don't know exactly when it happened. I can't figure it out. Hopefully it doesn't continue to bother me as we continue to move on in the postseason."

X-Rays and an MRI, as well as an examination on Wednesday night revealed James strained the elbow and also has a bone bruise of his olecranon. He is scheduled to undergo daily treatments and a repeat MRI will be performed next week. It is not anticipated that James will miss any playing time, although he is expected to wear a protective sleeve to help absorb contact.

The Celtics, meanwhile, had no trouble closing out their first round set on Tuesday when Ray Allen hit 5-of-6 from behind the arc and scored a team-high 24 points to help the Celtics to a 96-86 Game 5 victory at TD Garden.

Cleveland has won 12 of its last 13 postseason games at Quicken Loans Arena and is a gaudy 25-7 at The Q since the 2006 postseason, the second most home wins in the playoffs over that span (LA Lakers are 26-5).

The Cavs and Celtics split four games in the regular season and this will be the fifth playoff meeting between the two clubs dating back to the 1975-76 season when Boston won the Eastern Conference finals over the Cavs in six games.

"We're looking forward to the challenge. It is a team we knew we had to face at some point," James told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "We're not much of a talking group, but we're not going to back down from nobody. It is going to be a fun, physical series."

The C's also won a first round series over Cleveland in 1984-85, and in the East semis in 2007-08. The Cavs only win in the postseason over Boston came in the East semifinals during the 1991-92 season, also a seven-game set.

"I think it's something that's kind of turned into a rivalry," Boston forward Paul Pierce said. "We played them already one time in the playoffs and it just seems every game we play against them, whether it be at home or on the road it gets kind of heated.

"This is a big series for us. You have to expect some tempers to probably flare. It'll be a physical series, just two heavyweights going at it, battling for one thing and that's to advance and go to the next round."

Game 2 of the series is scheduled for Monday in Cleveland.

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Betting Sports

The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)

But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)

Points (or Runs) Scored

Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.

The final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was 24-21; the scoring of both teams added up to 45, which means the game went Under . So Under bettors won, and Over bettors lost.

Future Bets

Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.

Proposition Bets (or Prop Bets)

Proposition bets , also known as prop bets, focus upon the more exotic aspects of a game and are generally reserved for events that are widely televised. Prop bets are extremely popular when it comes to wagering on the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The Imperial Palace Casino’s sportsbook is well-known for the enormous number of prop bets offered. For example, you can bet on:

Types of Bets

Straight Bet

Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.

Sports Betting Parlays

A parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay bet is much better odds than placing each individual bet separately since the difficulty of hitting it is much higher.

Standard payoffs on a two-team parlay are 13/5; while a three-teamer pays 6/1; and a four-teamer 10/1.

Parlay cards are also fairly common in sportsbooks and popular with bettors, as they are released early in the week with set odds that do not change in return for a slightly lower payoff.

Round Robin Betting

Adventurous bettors who enjoy betting parlays sometimes put together a series of parlays called a Round Robin . A three-team Round Robin consists of one three-team parlay and three two-team parlays. For example, Joe likes teams A,B,C – with a Round Robin he has a three-teamer with ABC, and two-teamers with AB, AC, and BC.

Betting Teasers

Similar to a parlay, a teaser bet is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers, but is different in that the point spread is adjusted to your advantage on each individual wager. In exchange for the points, you get less of a return on your bet compared to a parlay. For example, a 6-point teaser would move the line on a 7-point favorite from -7 to -1, meaning the team would have to cover 6 less points. Each of the individual wagers must win or the bet is a loss.

These are the main types of sports bets available today. But as sports betting continues to grow, sportsbooks will continue to develop new and creative ways to bet. We’ll continue to track these changes to the sports gambling landscape, so check back often and we’ll tell you all about it!

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