Columnist Jeff Haney: New rules put some bounce into NBA totals

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999 | 10:18 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Wednesday. Reach him at 259-4041 or haney@vegas.com.

By the time the NBA finals creaked to a halt this past summer, the lockout that devoured a large chunk of the regular season was but a memory.

Pro basketball fans, however, had a new target for their ire: the sluggish, dump-it-out style of play that has come into vogue and resulted in lots of bor-r-r-ing games.

In the gambling world, that translated into much lower totals for NBA over/under bettors to consider.

Sports books routinely posted totals in the 160s and low 170s last season, numbers rarely seen before scoring went into its downward spiral. Sacramento, with its wide-open offense, was the only team whose totals were listed as high as 200 with any frequency -- the Kings' number reached that level in about one-third of their games.

That was all supposed to change this season.

Heeding the complaints of fans, the NBA implemented several new rules designed to make the game more "fluid," as the league put it.

Crack down on hand-checking and those pesky zone defenses, reset the shot clock at 14 rather than 24, and voila -- flowing, free-form basketball. Scoring will increase, making fans happy. QED, like the mathematicians say.

Many sports books took a wait-and-see approach to the new rules, declining to post totals for the first week of the NBA season. Once they jumped in, totals were indeed higher.

"It looks like scoring will be up some," Stratosphere sports book director Nick Bogdanovich said back in the early going of the NBA season. "I anticipate totals will be higher, and that people will be betting them up."

Bogdanovich was right on target. In the early part of the season, the rules changes did lead to higher-scoring games.

That trend appeared to peak on Saturday, Nov. 6, when nine of the day's 10 NBA games went over the posted total. Three of those totals were over 200, three more in the mid-190s.

But skeptics said the increased scoring was a result of more fouls being called and more trips to the free-throw line -- the opposite of the desired freewheeling style of play.

Skeptics said it wouldn't take long for NBA players to adjust to the new rules.

Skeptics were right, according to Jack Love, sports book director at the Resort at Summerlin, who says more games have been going "under" as scoring levels off.

"It took the players about 10 days to deal with the new rules," Love said Tuesday. "Now we're back to the same old low-scoring games like the ones we had last year.

"After the first week, it looked like (the rules changes) were going to have some effect, and you saw a lot more totals up in the 200 range.

"The rules changes can't change the fact that players don't pass and can't shoot. Basically all they can do is dunk. The rules changes can't change the fact that their style of play (stinks) -- and you can quote me on that."

* NBA FUTURES: Bogdanovich reports that bettors in the Stratosphere are backing Portland as a chalk play and Charlotte as a dark horse to win the NBA championship.

"All the power is in the West," Bogdanovich said. "We have had some money on the Blazers, but people who are looking to take a longer shot are going with the Hornets."

Bogdanovich's personal choice to win the title?

"I'm going to say the Lakers," he said. "Once they get (Kobe) Bryant back (from a hand injury), I think Phil Jackson is going to mesh that team together."

The Trail Blazers are listed at 3-2, the Lakers 6-1 and the Hornets 25-1.

* RIVALRY WEEK: MGM Grand sports book supervisor Gregg Fischer thinks that when it comes to college football rivalries, "Throw out the record books" isn't an empty cliche.

"Absolutely, and a prime example was the Ohio State-Michigan game," Fischer said, referring to Saturday's 24-17 Michigan victory, in which a fired-up Ohio State squad covered a 12-point spread.

"I'm from Cleveland and I follow (Ohio State) all year. Nothing in Ohio State's past performance from this year indicated they would play that well against Michigan. It's a classic case of a team stepping up in a big rivalry game."

Other underdogs who covered against traditional rivals Saturday were Indiana (plus 15 1/2) against Purdue, a game in which the betting public supported the Boilermakers; South Carolina (plus 14) against Clemson; Utah (plus 6 1/2), which beat BYU outright; and Washington State (plus 13 1/2) against Washington.

On the other hand, Florida State was among the favorites which cashed tickets in rivalry games, covering a 3-point spread against Florida. Hyped by some as the game of the year so far, Florida-Florida State was just another big game to gamblers.

"I can say we got great two-way action once we went to 3 (from 3 1/2)," said Fischer. "But it didn't stand out to me as being more heavily bet than other big games."

The Resort at Summerlin's Love agreed.

"We had more money on the Penn State-Michigan State game," Love said. "Sometimes if the game is too tough, the (gamblers) will watch it but won't bet on it."

In the Florida-Florida State game, "we had a little more money on Florida in straight bets, but they were betting Florida State on the parlay cards," Love said.

* GRANT-GOLOTA: When heavyweight contender Michael Grant unloaded a thunderous right hand in the 10th round Saturday night in Atlantic City to knock out Andrew Golota, he also KO'd the hopes of most bettors, who were backing Golota in Las Vegas sports books.

The favored Grant opened at 6-1 and went off around 3-1.

"They were definitely betting Golota -- and they had the right side, too," said Love. "I think Grant had about one good round besides the knockout round."

* CONTEST WINNERS: Twenty-eight entrants went 15-2 to split the $15,000 weekly prize in the Stardust's free All-American football contest. Each winner pocketed $535.70. In the Stardust Invitational, Russ Culver went 4-3 to defeat fellow sports analyst Greg Daraban, who went 3-4. At 9 p.m. Friday at the Stardust, KTNV-TV sports director Ron Futrell squares off against sports handicapper Larry Ness.