The NBA season has been put on hold for at least 30 days due to the coronavirus crisis, meaning we may have to wait until mid-April at the earliest to watch the Boston Celtics again.
As a way to make up for the loss of Celtics action, we'll be using the NBA 2K20 video game to simulate each game on the schedule until they finally return.
PREVIOUS FIVE SIMULATIONS
The Celtics were supposed to be taking on the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night. Here's how our simulation of the matchup went:
CELTICS STATS
Boston Celtics
It was the Jayson Tatum & Gordon Hayward show as the duo scored 32 and 24 points respectively. Tatum also tallied three steals and four blocks to add to his incredible performance.
Kemba Walker, who has scored 30-plus points in the majority of our simulations, was more of a distributor this time around with a game-high eight assists.
GRIZZLIES STATS
Ja Morant is a budding superstar, and that showed in this simulation as the rookie led the Grizzlies with 28 points. Fellow rookie Brandon Clarke was a factor too, contributing 20 points and six rebounds.
Jonas Valanciunas was another player with 20-plus points for Memphis, finishing with a double-double (21 points, 10 rebounds).
TEAM STATS
Nearly every category was about even, which explains why this ended up coming down to the wire. The real difference-maker here was the Celtics were deadly from 3-point range (42 percent). They almost got themselves in major trouble with those ridiculous 33 team fouls. Luckily, it didn't end up costing them.
FINAL SCORE: Celtics 118, Grizzlies 117
The simulation Celtics are steaking. It was a close call, but this win makes it six consecutive victories as the offense continues to roll. We'll see if they can continue the streak when we simulate Friday's game vs. the Portland Trail Blazers.