Bobcats no match for Blazers at Rose Garden

Basketball Betting Lines

02/02/2010 - Portland, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - LaMarcus Aldridge scored 17 points and pulled down eight rebounds in Portland's 98-79 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats.

Nicolas Batum added 15 points and a career-high nine boards off the bench for the Trail Blazers, who have won two in a row following a three-game skid. Jerryd Bayless also scored 15 in the victory.

Andre Miller, coming off a career-high 52 points in a 114-112 overtime win at Dallas on Saturday, finished with just eight points and 10 assists on 4-of-6 shooting.

Stephen Jackson had 23 points for Charlotte, which failed in its bid for a franchise-record fourth straight road win. Gerald Wallace scored 17 to go with 10 rebounds, while Flip Murray ended with 13 points.

Charlotte was down 72-65 moving to the fourth quarter, and the Bobcats went ice cold from the field over the final 12 minutes, going 4-of-13 from the field. Portland turned seven Charlotte turnovers into eight points in the period.

Murray was fouled on a three-point try in the opening seconds of the fourth and promptly sank all the shots, but the Blazers went on an ensuing 10-2 spurt, widening the lead to 82-70 following a Rudy Fernandez pull-up three- pointer.

Portland remained ahead by double digits the remainder of the game.

The Blazers gained a 29-19 lead after the first quarter and they remained in control throughout the second, leading 51-43 at the half. Murray's three- pointer capped the third period.

Game Notes

Portland swept the season series, also winning 80-74 at Charlotte on November 14...Charlotte is 3-2 on a six-game road trip, which concludes Wednesday against the Lakers...Blazers guard Brandon Roy (sprained right hamstring) missed his seventh straight game...Fernandez had 11 points while Martell Webster and Dante Cunningham each scored 10 for Portland, which shot 53.3 percent from the field...Charlotte had 21 turnovers, leading to 28 Portland points.

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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.