The 2012 NBA All-Star game will be played on February 26th, 2012 in Orlando, FL. Kevin Durant is one of the starters on the Western Conference squad and hopefully Russell Westbrook will be named as a reserve soon.

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The 2012 NBA All-Star game will be played on February 26th, 2012 in Orlando, FL. 5 OKC Thunder players including KD, Russ, Harden, Ibaka, and Perkins are on the ballot so vote early, vote often, and more importantly, vote Thunder! Vote at NBA.com until January 31st.

The Oklahoma City Thunder will take on the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night, the teams third game in four days to start the season. The Thunder grabbed a pair of wins in the first two, with a dominant preformance over Orlando and a nail biter in Minnesota. This game will mark the first meeting between the two teams since it’s epic seven game series in last years playoffs.

The Grizzlies are coming off of a 13 point loss at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night. This is the Grizzlies home opener.

This should be a very close game that goes down to the wire, as Memphis’ home crowd will almost certainly come out to see Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Starting Line Ups

Oklahoma City

PG: Russell Westbrook

SG: Thabo Sefolosha

SF: Kevin Durant

PF: Serge Ibaka

C: Kendrick Perkins

Memphis

PG: Mike Conely

SG: Tony Allen

SF: Rudy Gay

PF: Zach Randolph

C: Marc Gasol

Injury Report

None

Three Bold Statements

1. Serge Ibaka comes back to life. In the previous two games, Serge has gotten into verbal spats with teammates and been almost a complete non factor offensively. No one really knows what the problem is, but I predict that the off day gave Ibaka some time to think. He may not contribute much more to the offense, but I would look for him to be more of a consisten player on defense and for him to be more active on the boards.

2. Kevin Durant has a huge game. In the past, Durant has struggled slightly against Memphis, but that was with Shane Battier pestering him for most of the evening. Tonight, Rudy Gay will get the assignment. Gay might be an underrated defender, but we’ll see how he does tonight agains the two time scoring champ.

3. Thabo Sefolosha and Tony Allen are the Keys to the game. These two teams are very similar in that they both feature defensive minded shooting guards in their starting lineups. In the fourth quarter when (and if) this game is close, it could be up to one of these two players to hit a wide open three to win the game.

Final Prediction

Oklahoma City Thunder: 98

Memphis Grizzlies: 97

-TTMA0-