Suns turn to Twitch to play Mavericks during NBA postponement

Just because there’s no NBA doesn’t mean there’s no basketball.

The Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks, scheduled to play at American Airlines Center on Friday night, still found a way to take the court after league play was postponed for at least 30 days due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Suns and Mavericks social media teams put together an NBA 2K20 and live-streamed it on Twitch.

Streamer Antonio Saldivar represented the Suns while Lawrence “Buddy” Norman, who is the Brand Ambassador for Mavericks Gaming, represented Dallas, according to a Suns press release.

Saldivar couldn’t lead Phoenix to its “27th” win of the season, as his Suns 2K team lost 150-136.

There were more than 12,500 people watching the game at one point.

.@Suns' first Twitch stream of the games left on the schedule via playing NBA2K was a tremendous success.

Viewership kept climbing, a rarity on Twitch. At one point, it was over 12,500 viewers, which put them top 10 among all live channels on the platform.

Awesome stuff.

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 14, 2020

The Suns plan to mirror its season through 2K as long as the postponement is in place, the organization said in the press release.

Phoenix’s next game was scheduled to be against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.

The games can be watched at Twitch.tv/phoenix_suns.

NBA games were postponed Wednesday night after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert was diagnosed with the coronavirus. On Thursday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver declared there would be at least 30 days without games.

Other leagues including the MLB and NHL have postponed their seasons, and the NCAA has canceled winter and spring championships, including March Madness.

Follow @Logan_Newsman