Tonight was supposed to simply be a special night to celebrate Peja Stojakovic's jersey retirement on national tv but instead we have a few new storylines to follow. Durant and Westbrook are back and have the Thunder playing awesome. Rudy Gay and Kendrick Perkins apparently hate each other. Oh and yeah, Tyrone Corbin is our head coach now. Tonight's action tips off at 7:30 pm on ESPN and on KHTK 1140.
3 THINGS TO LOOK FOR
1. Corbin hasn't had much time to prepare since taking over for Malone and he got about as tough of an opponent as you can get in the Oklahoma City Thunder. It will be interesting to see how the Kings play differently with Corbin and especially how much faster they play since that is apparently now the prime directive. It will also be interesting to see what kind of substitution patterns Corbin uses.
2. Oklahoma City lost their first game with Kevin Durant back but haven't lost since, winning six in a row with most of those wins being by double digits. They are fully healthy for the first time in a while and have been doing very well on both ends of the court. Without DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings don't really have a plus matchup across the board.
3. Peja's jersey retirement is going to be awesome. I can't wait to see that #16 go in the rafters tonight.
MATCHUP OF THE GAME
Kevin Durant vs. Rudy Gay
This is the premier matchup of the game. Rudy has struggled mightily the last couple games, but hopefully being in front of a national tv audience and going up against the game's best SF will inspire him to have a great game, because it's almost guaranteed that Durant will have a great game. Durant is one of those rare once in a generation players that are almost impossible to stop. Nevertheless, we will have to try.
PREGAME LIMERICK
Let's celebrate the great Peja Stojakovic,
whose stroke was akin to a perfect pitch.
He thrilled us so,
much to opponents' woe,
and even caused Ben McLemore's jersey to switch.
PREDICTION
Kings 115, Thunder 114 after Peja Stojakovic celebrates his jersey retirement with the little known NBA rule of "Celebrity shot" to make the game winner.