David Thorpe's Analysis December 02, 2008 Want another reason to be bullish on the Blazers? Try this: Oden is hitting only 37 percent of his close shots that are not dunks. And we know he's going to be a better finisher than that. It's true that teams will be better prepared to defend him after they study him more, but the same is also true in reverse -- as Oden begins to anticipate what's going to happen as he catches the ball, he'll be better at countering the defensive actions he's about to face. The game starts to slow down for players once they can "see" what's going to happen before it does. SIDE NOTE: RUDY is #4