When the NBA suspended play on March 12, the Nets stood at 30-34, and in seventh place in the Eastern Division standings. Nets and other NBA fans were deprived of some exciting races for playoff berths and seeding positions, so Strat-O-Matic (www.strat-o-matic.com), the market leader in sports simulations, played out the rest of the regular season, which was scheduled to end today, and based on those results will continue to simulate the postseason, day-by-day, through the Finals in mid-June as scheduled, or until live action on the court resumes.
In Strat-O-Matic’s simulation, the Nets went 9-9 down the stretch, losing out on the tiebreaker to the Orlando Magic, who also finished at 39-43, giving Brooklyn the No. 8 seed. They will take on league MVP Giannis Antentokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, who stand at an NBA-best 67-15, in the first round of the playoffs. Game One in Milwaukee is set for Sunday.
The Knicks finished ninth at 30-52.
“While Strat-O-Matic is known most for baseball, we have refined our basketball and other sports games over the decades,” said Hal Richman, Strat-O-Matic founder. “Basketball fans didn’t get to find out how the playoff races played out in the final month of the season, but our simulation sets up some exciting playoff matchups that we hope fans will want to follow through to the championship.”
Full playoff results and game boxscores are available to fans each day beginning at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m PT on April 18th at http://www.strat-o-matic.com/2020-basketball-playoffs/.
The first-round playoff matchups in the 2020 Strat-O-Matic simulation, best-of-seven series, in 2-2-1-1-1 home/away format, are as follows:
Eastern Conference
#1 Milwaukee vs. #8 Brooklyn
#2 Toronto vs. #7 Orlando
#3 Boston vs. #6 Philadelphia
#4 Miami vs. #5 Indiana
Western Conference
#1 Los Angeles Lakers vs. #8 New Orleans
#2 Denver vs. #7 Dallas
#3 Los Angeles Clippers vs. #6 Oklahoma City
#4 Houston vs. #5 Utah