The Boston Celtics have had a terrible time with the Cleveland Cavaliers so far in the Eastern Conference Finals, losing the first two games at home, including a demoralizing 44-point loss in Game 2. To this point, the Celtics have appeared completely over-matched by Cleveland, and the task will only get more difficult as they head on the road for Game 3.
There isn’t much that points to a Boston bounce-back on Sunday. The Celtics struggled mightily on the road in their Eastern Conference Semifinal against the Wizards, and Isaiah Thomas’ injury means they are without their top offensive weapon. However, maybe they can dig down and find whatever it was they had against the Bulls on the road in the first round that let them win both games in Chicago. That’s the best source of hope, right?
We turned to NBA2k17 to find out if it believes in blind optimism and hope, or if it looks at this Celtics team like the rest of us and wonders how they can possibly compete. You can watch our entire simulation of Cavs-Celtics Game 3 here, but we’re going to jump right on ahead to the results.
Welp. I guess that answers that. The virtual Game 3 Celtics don’t do much better than the real Game 2 Celtics. The biggest disparity comes from Cleveland’s ability to get to the charity stripe, turnover differential, and simply having a better shooting night than the offensively-challenged Celtics. Unsurprisingly, it’s LeBron James and Kyrie Irving who led the way for the Cavs.
Big nights for LeBron and Kyrie, coupled with an absolute monster showing on the glass from Tristan Thompson, and the starters wiped the floor with the Celtics, with all five having a +/- of 18 or above. As for the Celtics, well, without Isaiah Thomas the offense was Al Horford and … no one.
It’s not a pretty sight. This is, sadly, about right for the Celtics sans Thomas. Unless Olynyk or Bradley get hot, there’s not a whole lot of creativity on the floor to produce offense. As you can see from the shot chart, there was not much jump-shooting success on the Boston side of the court.
The MVP of Game 3 was Tristan Thompson for his massive game on the glass with 23 rebounds, to along with 15 points. Rare is the Cavs game that sees someone other than the Big Three take the spotlight, but that’ll happen when you have that kind of game on the boards.
In short, NBA2K17 does not have high hopes for Game 3 to give us a rare competitive game in these conference finals and predicts that the Cavs move one game away from a third straight Finals performance with ease.
