After an entertaining Saturday night, the NBA All-Star weekend returns Sunday evening with the main event, the 64th NBA All-Star Game.

The All-Star Game features the NBA’s most gifted athletes and will be held in the World’s Most Famous Arena, the Madison Square Garden. For decades upon decades, we’ve watched many NBA superstars lace them up on this special evening.

Sunday evening will be no different.

The Eastern Conference will be represented by John Wall, Kyle Lowry, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Pau Gasol as the starting unit, and Jeff Teague, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, Al Horford, and Chris Bosh as the reserves. Dwyane Wade was also selected to play in the All-Star Game but will sit out with a hamstring injury.

The Western Conference will have Stephen Curry, James Harden, Klay Thompson, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Marc Gasol as its starters, and Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and DeMarcus Cousins as its reserves. Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, and Anthony Davis, who were all selected as starters, will miss the game due to injuries.

Atlanta Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer will coach the Eastern Conference, while Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr will coach the Western Conference.

We have a flurry of fresh, young faces in this year’s All-Star Game, featuring a handful of first-time All-Stars in Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins, Jeff Teague, Kyle Lowry, Kyle Korver, and Jimmy Butler.

It will be exhilarating to watch these young, talented stars showcase their skills on the big stage. Typically for first-time All-Stars, there are a lot of nerves coming in. One thing first-time All-Star Kyle Lowry talked about on Friday during the Sprint Celebrity Game was not throwing up air balls in his first appearance.

Dissecting the East team, they have a lot of quickness. LeBron James playing power forward will make it tough for LaMarcus Aldridge to keep up in transition, and we all know how fantastic James is in the open floor. Also, Kyle Lowry will be playing shooting guard as opposed to his natural position of point guard, making the East backcourt speedier. Lastly, the East has John Wall, one of the fastest end-to-end point guards in the league.

However, the West has more size in the frontcourt, with Marc Gasol, DeMarcus Cousins, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kevin Durant. With Blake Griffin and Anthony Davis sidelined with injuries, the West has lost some major frontcourt athleticism, but they should be able to own the glass and the paint with their lengthy bigs.

The most interesting battle should be between the two brothers, Marc and Pau Gasol. The Gasol brothers are highly skilled fundamentalists, and will be going head to head at the center position for each conference. Marc, being the youngest, is bulkier than Pau, but Pau is more finesse. It should be a memorable day for the two siblings.

Digging through the benches, the West has the fiercest point guards. With Russell Westbrook’s explosiveness, Damian Lillard’s incredible shooting, and Chris Paul’s dazzling passes, the West bench is extremely potent in the backcourt.

In the starting unit, the West has three incredibly gifted shooters in Stephen Curry, the winner of the Three-Point Contest, Klay Thomspon, and James Harden. Harden is the leading scorer in the league and could possibly be the closer along with Kevin Durant who, despite all his injuries, is still a crunch time player.

The East’s starting unit has LeBron James, who is out there to prove that he is still the best in the league. Carmelo Anthony would have been a usual suspect to close out games for the East along with James, but with Anthony’s current injury issues, it seems as though he won’t see heavy minutes. In fact, after the All-Star Game Anthony is highly likely to shut it down for the remainder of the season.

The East has four guys coming from the best team in the conference, the Atlanta Hawks. The four should provide ball movement and versatility to the East team. It would be interesting to see if Coach Budenholzer brings in all four of his guys at the same time. The last couple of times an All-Star Game featured four players from one team was in 2011 and 2006 when the Boston Celtics had Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett on the team, and the Detroit Pistons had Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace.

This should be an intriguing game, filled with many highlight reel dunks, remarkable shot making, and tremendous passing. Usually, these stars try to put on an amusing show for the fans in first three quarters of the game, and then they begin to play with ultimate intensity and competitiveness in the final period.

We should expect the same on Sunday evening when the All-Star Game tips off at 8 pm Eastern Time on TNT. 

Prediction: West; James Harden MVP