Heat begin key homestand with visit from Clippers

Basketball Betting Lines

03/10/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Miami Heat are fighting for their playoff lives and hope to gain some ground during a six-game homestand that starts with tonight's matchup versus the Los Angeles Clippers at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Heat have won three in a row as the host and will also welcome Chicago, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Orlando and Charlotte to South Florida. They are currently tied with Charlotte for seventh in the Eastern Conference standings, just a half-game ahead of Chicago for the final playoff berth, and sport a 17-14 home record.

Miami, though, is coming off Tuesday's 83-78 loss to the Bobcats in which Dwyane Wade had 27 points and seven boards in losing fashion. Jermaine O'Neal added 19 points and five rebounds, while Michael Beasley finished with 11 points and nine boards for the Heat.

"We showed up for the fight," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said on NBA.com, "but we did not close the game well at all, certainly not offensively. We had too many empty possessions and gave them too many shots to take the lead."

The Heat were 20-0 when holding opponents to under 90 points and 17-0 when keeping opposing teams to less than 40 percent shooting from the field before last night's loss to the Bobcats.

Los Angeles hasn't scored more than 87 points in its last three games and is riding a four-game losing streak. It fell to 0-2 on a five-game road trip after Tuesday's 113-87 setback at Orlando.

Baron Davis led the Clippers with 16 points and nine assists off the bench, and Drew Gooden posted a double-double with 12 points and 14 rebounds for Los Angeles, which has dropped seven in a row away from Staples Center. Chris Kaman scored 12 points and Steve Blake netted 11 with five assists in defeat.

"We didn't make shots and they really shot the ball well," said Clippers head coach Kim Hughes after his team made 43 percent of its attempts.

The Clippers will also visit Charlotte and San Antonio on this trek and are 7-25 as the guest this season. They have lost 11 of their last 12 road games.

Los Angeles defeated Miami, 94-84, at home back on January 10 behind Kaman's team-high 22 points and 14 rebounds. The Clippers have won five of the last seven contests in this series.

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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.