Luka Doncic scored 50 points and dished 19 assists on Friday night as the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Phoenix Suns 150-136.
Well, not exactly.
Soon after the decision was made to postpone the NBA season because of concerns over the coronavirus, the Suns announced that their games would continue on — virtually.
Friday night marked the first virtual matchup, between the Suns and the Mavericks, who had been scheduled to meet on the hardwood at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday night.
The season isn’t over yet…
We will continue to play the Suns season games on @NBA2K!
Saturday’s game will be moved to tomorrow. Join us live on @Twitch as we take on the @dallasmavs! pic.twitter.com/745QIuvCMc
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) March 13, 2020
Representing the Suns was Antonio “UniversalPhenom” Saldivar, a Phoenix native who plays in the NBA 2K League for the Memphis Grizzlies‘ affiliate, Grizz Gaming. The 2K League, which was scheduled to kick off its third season on March 24 in New York City, has been postponed due to concerns over coronavirus.
“This was put together in as little as five hours and the outcome was beyond expectations,” Saldivar told ESPN. “We wanted to give the fans something to look forward to with everything going on and just try to interact with them as much as possible and try to bring both gaming and real life sports together.”
Guiding the Mavs to victory on Friday night was the brand ambassador for Mavericks Gaming, Lawrence “Buddy” Norman.
The stream was a success, consistently in the 4,500 to 5000 range in audience, at one point reaching over 12,000 viewers, which is an impressive viewership number on Twitch for NBA2K game streams. The numbers were also comparable to NBA 2K League viewership on the platform, which averaged 4,663 viewers in 2019, with the NBA2K League finals averaging over 14,000 viewers.
“During this unprecedented time the Suns social media team, with an assist with the Dallas Mavericks, developed an innovative opportunity to leverage their platforms to bring the basketball community together and drive a positive conversation in the social space,” a news release on NBA.com read.
The next three games for the Suns would have been against the Minnesota Timberwolves, LA Clippers and Dallas Mavericks.