Bucks and Raptors meet at ACC

Basketball Betting Lines

02/08/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Milwaukee Bucks try to avoid a fourth straight loss this evening when they open a brief two-game road trip against the Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre.

The Bucks played hard on Tuesday to no avail, as they overcame a 21- point deficit, but eventually fell to the Phoenix Suns, 107-105.

Drew Gooden had 25 points for the Bucks, while Ersan Ilyasova and Mike Dunleavy each tallied 17 points, with the former adding 12 rebounds.

Milwaukee put itself in such a large hole, as it allowed a season worst-tying 67 points in the first half. The Bucks actually held a four-point lead in the fourth quarter, but Phoenix fought back and grabbed the lead for good on a Steve Nash jumper with five seconds remaining.

The Bucks were unable to get a shot off as time expired.

"We just need to come out with a better sense of urgency from the start," said Dunleavy. "Most of our games the last week or so, we've been real bad to get going, to get off the jump. Hopefully we can get off to a good start and play a good four quarters (Wednesday)."

The Raptors, meanwhile, suffered their second straight loss on Monday in Washington, as the Wizards beat them in overtime, 111-108.

It was a miraculous feat that the Raptors even got that game to overtime, as they trailed by 10 after the opening period, by 15 at the half and found themselves down by 18 with just over three minutes left in the third quarter.

"That was a bad exhibition of basketball. We had an unprofessional start," coach Dwane Casey said. "You have to go off on them at halftime to get them to play. It shouldn't have to ever get to that, and that's why I was disappointed, even with the second-half comeback."

Jerryd Bayless and Linas Kleiza led the way for the Raptors, netting 30 points apiece. DeMar DeRozan added 15 but it wasn't enough for Toronto, which has now lost four of its last five.

"We were not able to make plays at the end, but it's the effort thing," said Kleiza about his team falling behind early. "We just have to come out harder."

Toronto is still without Andrea Bargnani, who is nursing a strained left calf.

Milwaukee swept the four-game season series with the Raptors last season and has won six of seven and eight of the last 10 overall matchups. However, the Bucks have dropped six of their last 10 north of the border.

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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.