The Bulls of Chicago visit The Trailblazers of Portland

Oden put up 22 and 10 (with 5 turnovers) on the Dubs last night.  Abbott is not amused.  Shoals dubbed it Oden's "coming-out party".  But a night after facing a frontline of...well, Biedrins, Biedrins, and Biedrins, Oden's given another interesting matchup against Drew Gooden and Joakim Noah.  A far cry from the initial tough stretch of schedule that Oden conveniently missed against Shaq, Al Jefferson, Jesus, Stonewall Jackson's reanimated corpse, Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, etc.

Abbott certainly has an argument: Oden was all kinds of awkward last night.  For every beautiful Roy/Oden pick and roll ending with a dunk, there was an Oden turnover that should've been another easy 2.  He camped in the lane, he didn't protect the ball going up, and he actually stalled his team quite a bit down the stretch, momentum-wise.  But you don't screw with the holy 20 and 10 (brownie points for the 2 extra points and blocks), regardless of ruining the flow of the game and looking like an arthritic C3P0.  For Oden, this is about establishing himself and raising his confidence, especially after his initial fears of not living up to the collossal expectations that depict him as some sort of Russellesque messiah.  His image dons the interior walls of the pyramids, for gossake.  The guy will be good.  He doesn't have that raw TysonChandlerness that will seemingly prevent him from developing a more consistent non-dunk arsenal, and the tape shows that he can me more mobile and agile than he is now.  Tonight should be a nice test of his game conditioning and endurance, coming off of a near 30 minute contest against the fast paced Warriors.  His competition is hedged to keep things fair.

I'd be a jerk if I didn't mention the unbelievable Derrick Rose.  You can only attach so many words to the guy, but he looks absolutely wonderful on a pretty disappointing team.  It'll pretty much be up to him to contain Roy and, well, win the game.  Unless Ben Gordon decides to make some shots.

Let's see what you've got, Oden.  And you too, Rose.

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