[Wolverine Studios] We Simmed It – WCF : Golden State vs Oklahoma City

[GM Games 252]

Golden State vs Oklahoma City – a series hoop fans have been dying to see. We decided to take DDS: Pro Basketball 2016 to simulate this epic matchup in the Western Conference Finals. Our prediction…high drama. Read on!

 

GAME 1

Game 1 starts out with the home team and defending champs laying the wood to their challengers. A blowout from the start, Golden State dominates this one as Curry goes off for 40 while Durant disappears with a paltry 15 points. Russ did his part for sure with 22/10/5 and 2 blocks and 2 steals but its clear that if OKC is going to hang in this series Russ and KD have to be the mega-powers (prior to Miss Elizabeth getting knocked out that is)

Curry was way too much in game 1

GAME 2 (GST leads 1-0)

Game 2 shows that OKC is not going down without a fight in this one as they completely turn the momentum and steal a game despite being down 10 at the half. After being a game 1 goat KD bounces back and hits the game winner with 12 seconds left off a great dish by super teammate Russell Westbrook. The crowd left stunned and OKC now owns the momentum.

Durant hits the game winning jumper to tie the series

GAME 2 (series tied 1-1)

Talk about an amazing game – this time it was OKCs turn to take a 10 point lead into the half and still owned a 3 point lead with 6 seconds to go. Message to the team in the huddle – absolutely, positively do not let Curry fire a three. Leave it to Golden State though to adapt – unable to get the ball into Curry or even Klay Thompson for a tying three attempt, Harrison Barnes found option three – Draymond Green – who drilled a three from the top of the key to send the game to overtime. Turns out a lead with 6 seconds would be the worst possible thing for OKC on the night as they managed to see their 2 point lead turn into a 1 point deficit thanks to a Curry three with just 6 seconds left in OT. Their last second shot was no good and Golden State snatches the momentum back in a big way.

Draymond Green forces OT with a huge triple

Who else? Curry delivers the game 3 dagger

GAME 4 (GST leads 2-1)

Game 4 was an all out donnybrook with 22 lead changes proving that this series is turning out to be the dream matchup we thought it would be. Curry went for 37 but it wasn’t enough to counterbalance the 56 put up by the Westbrook/Durant duo. Klay Thompson continues to be quiet so far in the series. Roberson is playing some excellent defense on him during his minutes so he’s only really putting up numbers against Waiters – that is when Curry isn’t shooting. In fact nobody on GST has had a huge game yet outside of Curry – maybe a little bit of the old “let Jordan do what he wants but stop everyone else” idea going on?

Westbrook was money from the line in the game’s closing minutes

GAME 5 (series tied 2-2)

There is starting to become an air of inevitability that this series is going the distance and is going to be decided by a very thin margin. Game 5 lived up to the hype and more. Down two with just nine seconds OKC drew up their final play likely looking for Durant but Green’s defense was just too tough. Ibaka would be able to break free for an open look over Harrison Barnes and despite being 0-for from the floor he finally found the bottom of the net and sent the game to OT. Overtime was a blistering affair with both teams notching 13 points each and a 111-111 deadlock as Golden State would setup for their final shot. This time there was nothing OKC could do as Curry got his hands on the ball and drilled a three as time expired. Curry finishes with 36/9/9 and Green chips in 26. Can Golden State close it out on the road next?

Ibaka hits his only FG of the game to force overtime

Curry…at the buzzer….ball game!

GAME 6 (GST leads 3-2)

With their backs against the wall and once again championship aspirations flickering out would this be the potential last ride for OKC especially considering what this summer holds? Not today as OKC forces a game 7 in convincing fashion. Westbrook was a beast in the first half especially helping to carve out a 74-43 half time lead. Golden State attempted a comeback as Klay Thompson finally got going but a short flurry of second half threes from Klay and Steph wasn’t enough to bring this one back and we head back to Golden State for a winner take all game 7.

Too much Westbrook to handle in game 6

GAME 7 (series tied 3-3)

This series has been incredibly fun to watch play out. Watching virtual Steph trade buckets with virtual Durant. The way Golden State can just evaporate leads by coming down and hitting four straight threes. There have been two overtimes and games 4 and 5 alone combined for 45 lead changes. The series has had everything any fan could hope for and now – who does DDS: Pro Basketball 2016 think will prevail?

Golden State takes it in seven! For three quarters of this game it was neck and neck. The lead changed hands 22 times in those three quarters alone as OKC took a one point lead into the final frame. And then….Steph went Steph. Curry destroyed OKC like a machine in the 4th on his way to 39 points, 10 assists, 6 rebounds and 3 steals. There was just no stopping him. Westbrook had 28 and Durant had a rough 22 thanks to Green’s defense. Even Enes Kanter chipped in 17 but there was just no way to stop Curry in the final frame.

The MVP does it again

FINAL OBSERVATIONS

Well the first observation is that I’ve never had as much fun watching the AI play out a series in the game. Outside of the two blowouts the other five games I could feel an excitement build as the game went on because I knew it was going down to the wire. I found myself picturing thousands of OKC fans shouting NOOOOOOOO when an 0-9 Ibaka launched a jumper that would send game 5 to overtime. I marveled at how OKC could grind out a lead only to have GST come down, whip the ball around a few times and drill some threes and it seemed like minutes of hard work building a lead was erased in seconds.

Steph Curry was amazing – he averaged 31.6 PPG in the series while Russ and Durant averaged nearly identical numbers (24.3 and 24.6). The problem for OKC was that there was never a third wheel to get them over the hump. Kanter may have been that guy – he averaged 13.1 PPG for the series but only on just about 20 MPG. The problem was it wasn’t consistent. It seemed that Ibaka/Adams would play decent the games Kanter didn’t and when those guys had a lousy game it was Kanter who was playing well. It was almost like rolling the dice every game to see which of those three would play well. However the upside seemed so much more with Kanter as he did his damage in realtively few mintues while it would take Ibaka or Adams a full compliment of starters minutes to muster up their good games. Maybe I’ll go back and play “what-if” to see how the series might play out differently with Kanter involved more. Golden State never had that problem because Steph was human in two of the seven games but Thompson and Green still combined for over 32 PPG on average per game. It’s so much easier to not have to guess at who might have a good game and you can just pencil in 65 points or so before you even start.

I hope you enjoyed this segment and I look forward to doing some more in the future. If you did I want to give you a special chance to own Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2016 at a discount. Just click on this link for our webstore, add DDS:PB 2016 to your cart and enter the code WESIMMEDIT for a 20% discount- the code will work through 5/20/2016. Be sure to follow along our blog and follow us on our social media outlets for more cool features like this one!

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