Announcement

**Udog** · 05-23-2016, 08:33 AM

Armadillo: Monday's six-pack

Odds on six of the NFL's more interesting games this fall...........

-- Week 2-- Eagles @ Bears (-3)-- Monday night in Windy City.

-- Week 3-- Falcons @ Saints (-1)-- Monday night on Bourbn Street.

-- Week 4-- Dolphins @ Bengals (-6.5)-- Thursday night in Queen City.

-- Week 5-- Bucs @ Panthers (-8.5)-- Monday night in Charlotte.

-- Week 6-- Jets @ Cardinals (-6)-- Monday night in the desert.

-- Week 7-- Texans @ Broncos (-3.5)-- Osweiler against his old team.

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Armadillo: Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend.......

13) Blue Jays manager John Gibbons had an interesting week;
Sunday: ejected, Monday: ejected.
Tuesday-Thursday: suspended in connection with Sunday's ejection
Friday/Saturday: He actually managed the whole game both days.
Sunday: ejected-- good work if you can get it.

12) Washington Nationals played 13 of their first 44 games against Miami; now the teams will play only six more times the rest of this season. .

11) Albuquerque Isotopes are the Rockies' AAA team; they're having a bad year, losing six games in a row and 10 of last 12.

Things are so bad that the team employee who wears the "jar of salsa" costume during the Chile Race promotion pulled a leg muscle this weekend nad is now out of action.

10) From 2013-15, Hillary Clinton made 94 speaking engagements, earned $21.6M doing so. Thats million, with an M. Yikes.

9) Phil Mickelson agreed to forfeit nearly $1 million that the Securities/Exchange Commission said was unfairly earned on a tip from an insider trading scheme run by a former corporate director and a professional gambler.

Who plays Mickelson in the movie that will inevitably be made about this?

8) Thunder 133, Warriors 105-- This makes Game 4 a very interesting game. if the Spurs/Warriors go a combined 140-24 in the regular season and neither makes the NBA Finals, teams will be resting players constantly next season. No bueno.

7) I'm sitting here watching the 1995 movie Jury Duty, a movie so stunningly bad that I can't turn it off. For some reason, Dick Vitale was in this movie as a TV leegal analyst, basically playing his TV role, yelling and screaming. 21 years later, this movie is still on pay TV-- is this a great country or what?

6) I was watching the 1991 movie Forget Paris the other night, where Billy Crystal is an NBA ref; in the opening scene, he makes a critical call in a playoff game against the Phoenix Suns, who had Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle.

25 years later, Barkley is the best studio analyst the NBA has; Majerle is the coach at Grand Canyon College an up-and-coming D-I team and Johnson somehow is mayor of Sacramento, where he has saved the NBA's Kings from moving several times.

Real life is often stranger than fiction.

5) Then there is the 1973 movie "World's Greatest Athlete", where Seahawk coach Pete Carroll had an untitled role as a college football player. Also in this fine movie are the guy who played Mr Whipple in the old Charmin TV commercials, the guy who played General Burkhalter on Hogan's Heroes and former Viking QB Joe Kapp.

4) Why do the Texas Rangers want a new stadium? The one they play in is only 22 years old- teams should have to stay at least 40 years in a new stadium.

3) Tim Lincecum signed with the Angels for $2.5M; Halos are in even worse shape than the A's- their payroll is $164,673,333, compared to Oakland's $86,806,234.

2) While I am on this subject, the A's are 19-26 this year with a starting pitching rotation that is totally in shambles with Sonny Gray ineffective/hurt. After making the playoffs in 2012-14, the Ivy League genuses in the Oakland front office decided to trade Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester so they could win the 2014 World Series. The plan failed.....miserably.

109-154, thats the A's record since July 31, 2014- they pay Billy Butler $10M a year, Jed Lowrie $7M, Coco Crisp $11M. People talk about Moneyball all the time, but the 2001-03 A's were good for three reasons-- Hudson, Mulder, Zito. Starting pitchers.

Without solid starting pitchers (6+ innings most every night) your team has absolutely zero chance to contend. None. Pitching is the most critical element in baseball.

1) Congratulations to my friend Gary DiNola for being inducted into the Upstate New York Basketball Hall of Fame last night. I spent four years (1994-98) as one of his assistants and it one was one of the most interesting/fun eperiences of my life.

**Udog** · 05-23-2016, 08:36 AM

NBA

Monday, May 23

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Monday's NBA Conference Finals betting preview and odds: Cavaliers at Raptors
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Raptors' center Bismack Biyombo was a rebounding beast in Game 3 with 26 total boards (eight offensive and 18 defensive) - he also added four blocks and a couple of finger wags.

Cleveland Cavaliers at Toronto Raptors (+6, 197)

Cavaliers lead series 2-1

Everybody was writing off the Toronto Raptors after they lost the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals by an average of 25 points. Toronto countered with a superb Game 3 performance and aims to tie the series at 2-2 when it host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.

The Raptors posted a 99-84 home victory over the Cavaliers on Saturday when they limited Cleveland to 35.4 percent shooting from the field while center Bismack Biyombo was busy setting a franchise playoff record with 26 rebounds. "It's a long series," Raptors coach Dwane Casey told reporters afterward. "It's not over with yet, but everybody thought we were going to get swept. I think that fuels us and if that's what it takes, so be it." The Cavaliers won their first 10 games of the postseason before Saturday's mediocre showing and forward LeBron James attributed the result to a combination of Toronto's stellar play and his own club's shortcomings. "We didn't play our game, and they made us pay for it," James said at his postgame press conference. "It is a little adversity. Why not? It's the postseason, and you lose a game. This is our first loss of the postseason. I would count it as a little adversity."

TV: 8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN

LINE HISTORY: The Rapors hit the board for this pivotal Game 4 as 6-point home dogs and, at the time of publication of this preview, the line hasn't moved off that number. The total opened at 197 and has also yet to move. Check out the up-to-date and complete line history here.

ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (67-26, 44-46-3 ATS, 46-47 O/U): James scored 24 points in Game 3 but point guard Kyrie Irving (13 points on 3-of-19 shooting) and power forward Kevin Love (three points, 1-of-9) both had awful shooting nights. Love, who didn't play in the fourth quarter, is averaging just 12 points and 4.3 rebounds in the series and said the following to reporters: "I felt like I was a little passive. From a mentality standpoint, it's an easy fix." Irving averaged 26.5 points in the first two games before a woeful performance that included a 1-of-7 showing from 3-point range.

ABOUT THE RAPTORS (65-34, 51-48 ATS, 48-50-1 O/U): Biyombo has an increased role with starting center Jonas Valanciunas (ankle) sidelined and he averaged just 4.5 rebounds over the first two games before going on a board rage - including eight offensive - in Game 3. Biyombo set the tone by collecting 10 rebounds in the first quarter and had 16 at halftime as Toronto finished with a 54-40 rebounding edge. "I'm playing for my teammates, honestly, and for us it's just that we're going to play hard no matter what, and we're going to play our game," Biyombo told reporters after Game 3. "I've been saying that since we started the series, and our game is to protect the paint. And my job is to make sure that I protect the paint no matter what."

TRENDS:

* Cavaliers are 1-8-1 ATS in their last 10 games following a straight up loss of more than 10 points.
* Raptors are 8-1 ATS in their last 9 home games vs. a team with a winning road record.
* Under is 9-2 in Raptors last 11 games following a ATS win.
* Home team is 6-0 ATS in the last 6 meetings.
* Under is 22-5-1 in the last 28 meetings in Toronto.

CONSENSUS: Early Consensus data is showing a massive shift in public opinion. For Saturday's game it seemed like the entire world was picking the Cavaliers to win and cover the spread but the current numbers are drastically different with only 54 percent thinking that the Cavs can cover the six points on the road. Total wagering is, pretty much, where it's been all series with 63 percent of Covers users picking the Over.

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**Udog** · 05-23-2016, 08:41 AM

NBA
Long Sheet

Monday, May 23

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CLEVELAND (67 - 26) at TORONTO (65 - 34) - 5/23/2016, 8:35 PM
Top Trends for this game.
CLEVELAND is 2-11 ATS (-10.1 Units) after scoring 85 points or less over the last 2 seasons.
TORONTO is 19-10 ATS (+8.0 Units) in home games when playing against a team with a winning record this season.
TORONTO is 8-19 ATS (-12.9 Units) in all playoff games over the last 3 seasons.
TORONTO is 23-37 ATS (-17.7 Units) after a win by 10 points or more over the last 2 seasons.
TORONTO is 177-221 ATS (-66.1 Units) when playing against a team with a winning record - 2nd half of the season since 1996.
TORONTO is 50-65 ATS (-21.5 Units) versus good offensive teams - scoring 99+ points/game over the last 2 seasons.

Head-to-Head Series History
CLEVELAND is 7-6 against the spread versus TORONTO over the last 3 seasons
CLEVELAND is 7-6 straight up against TORONTO over the last 3 seasons
7 of 13 games in this series have gone UNDER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons

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NBA
Short Sheet

Monday, May 23

Cleveland at Toronto, 8:35 ET
Cleveland: 8-1 ATS revenging a straight up loss vs opponent as a road favorite
Toronto: 8-19 ATS in all playoff games

NBA
Armadillo's Write-Up

Monday, May 23

Toronto-Cleveland (C 2-1)
Cavaliers won six of last nine games with Toronto; over is 5-3-1 in last nine series games. Raptors kept series alive by winning Game 3 99-84; Lowry/Derozan combined for 52 points, Biyombo had 26 rebounds and was as dominant as a guy can be while scoring 7 points- Raptors are 7-2 at home in playoffs. Cavs are 10-1 SU in playoffs, 7-4 vs spread (over 5-5-1); how will they react after their first loss? . Toronto won five of last six home games; three of last five went over.

Playoff tally: Favorites vs spread: 26-18, Over: 13-31
Second round: Favorites: 13-8, over: 12-9
Conference final: Favorites: 3-3, over: 2-3-1

NBA

Monday, May 23

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Trend Report
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8:30 PM
CLEVELAND vs. TORONTO
Cleveland is 2-5 SU in its last 7 games when playing on the road against Toronto
Cleveland is 10-1 SU in its last 11 games
Toronto is 7-1 SU in its last 8 games at home
Toronto is 4-10 ATS in its last 14 games

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**Udog** · 05-23-2016, 10:08 AM

NBA
Dunkel

Monday, May 23

Cleveland @ Toronto

Game 713-714
May 23, 2016 @ 8:30 pm

Dunkel Rating:
Cleveland
132.655
Toronto
122.426
Dunkel Team:
Dunkel Line:
Dunkel Total:
Cleveland
by 10
192
Vegas Team:
Vegas Line:
Vegas Total:
Cleveland
by 5 1/2
197
Dunkel Pick:
Cleveland
(-5 1/2); Under

Announcement

Monday's NBA Trends and Indexes - 5/23

Monday's NBA Trends and Indexes - 5/23

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