Suns prove mistakes can be overcome

Basketball Betting Lines

05/10/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pride, ego and hubris run rampant in sports, and it's not all that hard to understand why.

We all make mistakes in life but it takes more than a little self-assurance to reach the top of a competitive profession like the NBA. Meanwhile, if something does go wrong when you are at the helm, it's almost impossible to admit you made the faux pas.

Think about it.

The talk shows and editorial pages would eat you for lunch, call you weak and set into a motion an almost-guaranteed trip to the unemployment line.

However, talk to any 12-stepper and they will tell you the same thing...you can't solve a problem unless you admit you have one.

Phoenix president of basketball operations Steve Kerr made a whopper in the desert before the 2008-09 season. Armed with five rings as a player and the ear of owner Robert Sarver, Kerr took over as the Suns' basketball chief in June of 2007 and made the same assessment every armchair GM playing EA Sports' NBA Live had already made.

The Suns just weren't tough enough on the defensive end to reach the promised land, so he replaced the popular and successful Mike D'Antoni and his "seven- seconds-or-less-offense" with the defensive-minded Terry Porter.

Armed with this generation's best playmaker in Steve Nash, one of the league's most athletic big men (Amare Stoudemire) and a swingman that can run the floor like few others (Jason Richardson), Porter ignored the strengths of his best players and ordered them to play a totally different brand of basketball.

It was a disaster.

Kerr didn't exactly scream his mistake from the rooftops, but he was smart enough to admit his miscue and pull the plug on his "vision" 51 games into the 2008-09 season, handing things to Alvin Gentry, a 20-year NBA coaching veteran and the only holdover from D'Antoni's staff.

Gentry quickly went back to running-and-gunning, and the Suns finished strong last year before turning back into a 54-win club this season.

It remains to be seen whether this Phoenix club is tough enough to reach the top of the NBA mountain but they accomplished something D'Antonio's team could never do -- beat the San Antonio Spurs.

Nash could barely see from his right eye after being stitched up in Game 4, but the former two-time MVP scored half of his 20 points in the fourth quarter as the Suns beat San Antonio, 107-101, to sweep their Western Conference semifinal series in the Alamo City.

The tandem of Nash and Stoudemire dominated the final quarter, running screen- and-rolls and helping the Suns shoot 12-of-19 from the field in the frame.

Two rather large hurdles still remain for a team that hasn't reached the NBA Finals since 1993, when Charles Barkley and Company fell in six games to the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. But Kerr's willingness to admit a mistake has given his franchise every opportunity to clear them.

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Football Betting

NFL Football Betting Online

The San Francisco 49ers (5-11 SU, 5-10-1 ATS in 2007; 1-1 SU & ATS in pre-season) found some offensive life last week, and they will try to build some momentum on Thursday night as they travel to the Windy City to take on the Chicago Bears (7-9 SU & ATS in 2007; 0-2 SU, 0-1-1 ATS in pre-season) in an NFL matchup that is set to get underway at 8 PM ET at Soldier Field (natural turf) in Chicago.

Thursday, August 21

NFL betting odds: CHICAGO -3 (-120), Total 37

NOTABLE STAT: San Francisco was last in points, last in total offense in 2007
KEY NFL BETTING TREND: SF has lost its last seven SU on pre-season road

In the BetUS NFL pre-season football betting odds, the Bears are listed as a three-point favorite (laying -120), with the total posted at 37 points.

Here are some NFL football betting trends as they relate to this matchup (reflecting numbers going into the 2008 season):

* SF has lost 11 of its last 14 games SU
* SF has covered three of its last 11 games
* SF has lost six of its last seven road games SU
* SF has covered one of its last seven road games
* CHI has covered five of its last eight games
* CHI has played five of its last seven games OVER the total
* CHI has covered four of its last 13 home games
* SF has lost its last seven pre-season road games SU
* CHI has covered two of its last seven home pre-season games

Well, I guess we should congratulate the Bears on making their quarterback choice for the season's opening game, as they have designated Kyle Orton the starter against Indianapolis. The Bears obviously have lost patience with Rex Grossman, and what they do with him at this point is anybody's guess. But suffice it to say that there isn't a quarterback competition anymore, at least in training camp.

Meanwhile, the quarterback competition may also be settled in San Francisco, where the Niners bounced back from a lackluster 18-6 loss to the Raiders, in which they turned the ball over four times, to execute a 34-6 rout of the Packers last Saturday. However, coach Mike Nolan has stopped short of saying that, insisting that the job is still open. But J.T. O'Sullivan, the longshot of the trio of Niner signal-callers who opened camp, will start his third straight pre-season game here. Against Green Bay, O'Sullivan was only 8-for-17, and was intercepted, but he also threw for 9.1 yards an attempt, which included a 59-yard TD pass to Josh Morgan. The others struggled.

Some offensive cohesion is badly needed, in light of the Niners' dismal 2007 campaign, in which they were dead last in the NFL in scoring, with just 13.7 points a game. And O'Sullivan is the guy who is most familiar with offensive coordinator Mike Martz's exacting system, because he learned it last year in Detroit. O'Sullivan will go at least the entire first half and may even last longer. He'll be relieved by Alex Smith, with Shawn Hill doing the mop-up work. Three receivers who were out last week - Bryant Johnson, Ashley Lelie and Arnaz Battle - will miss this game too.

That may hurt a little here, especially since the Bears will be using a lot of their defensive starters. And it's the defense that has been keeping the Bears in games thus far. In fact, the defense and special teams were responsible for the first 19 points Chicago scored against Seattle last time out, as the offense really struggled with Grossman at the controls. But maybe the first-team offense has a chance to settle a little bit as it works more with Orton at the helm.

Certainly we have concerns about the Bears' offensive line, but we like the scenario for them here, especially if O'Sullivan doesn't make some bis plays. The Niners may have nowhere else to turn right now, and they have lost seven straight road games in the pre-season. Let's take Chicago, the three-point favorite in the NFL football betting odds.

CHICAGO -3 (-120) **
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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