by Sonny Palermo, team handicapper at www.sportsmemo.com

At the beginning of last week Tim mentioned on the radio show that I was on a nice run in the NBA, and had won four out of the last five weeks. I won again last week, despite getting screwed by Phoenix with another half point Q1 loss, and a blown Q4 lead by Houston.

Still, I managed to grind out another week of profit, which I view as solid "training camp" for the upcoming baseball season, when it is REALLY important to grind out weekly profits using handicapping knowledge, patience, and sound money management principles (more on MLB play in my next blog, which should be posted right after the long-promised and now believed to be imaginary NBA and OT blog I have been working on.)

But the best thing to come of last week was not the now-higher digits I found in my bank account come Monday morning - the best part of it did not come from a win, but from a loss.

A couple of weeks ago I did a post-fight column, in which I explained how I always look at a sporting event with two eyes, two minds - one set on the game (and wager) at hand, the other searching for an edge I can use in an upcoming event. And while watching a couple NBA games this past week I spotted something that I thought I could use in the future, and had it confirmed when I watched the same team two days later.

Football may be King, as they say, but KNOWLEDGE is POWER.

Now, it's only a matter of time before the playoffs begin, the real season, when you can remove angles such as a team's possible lack of interest and focus, and I plan to use this knowledge to pad the bank account a bit more in the post season.

During the playoffs I won't wager on games on the almost daily basis I have in the NBA over the course of the second half of the season. I'll have a couple of single game plays, and at least one series wager.

The reason for this is two-fold:

1) my style of capping does not lend itself to playoffs

and

2) it is time to do battle with the Beast - major league baseball; and I do not like a divided focus when battling the numbers - I hone in on beating one sport a time. ESPECIALLY when the opponent is baseball. If Hitler hadn't divided his focus and tried to win on too many fronts he may have gone on to win the war (in which case we would have had to nuke his retarded ass at some point in the future.)

Like the post season in college football, I won't have a lot of plays, but like the post season there I have the tools to win again in the NBA.

There is precious, few time left - ride along with me as I continue to finish strong in the pro hoops . . .