The three contenders for The 2022 Defensive Players of the Year award included Mikal Bridges, Marcus Smart, and NBA 2K23 MT. As we reported earlier this week, Marcus Smart is the first guard since Gary Payton to win the an honorable award.

There was a lot of debate on who should've won the award this year. For example, Bam Adebayo showed discontent about not being selected as an official finalist. Two-time previous winner Giannis Antetokounmpo didn't make the cut, either. Rudy Gobert, who has had multiple wins for the award, was also not a winner.

The main question to ask is: what attributes or stats are crucial in determining the best defensive player? A contributor from Bleacher Report explains that the most efficient defensive player is one who excels both individually and as part of a team. I believe this is true and the most effective defensive player is across the court not strictly in the paint or on the perimeter.

The simulation is produced using the NBA Playoffs mode and entering each team in the correct location to accurately depict the actual game structure. NBA 2K23 runs the games with an automated system. The system runs each playoff round, determining the winner of each game before moving to the next round.

The first round had few surprise, as many of the power-house teams took down their opponents fairly easily. Matches that featured teams that were lower to the top of the list were intense particularly those between the Mavericks and Jazz team, who played through the entire seven-game set despite missing NBA 2K23's cover athlete Luka Doncic in the first game and two.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the seventh-seed Brooklyn Nets defeating the second-seed Boston Celtics in six games in part because the Celtics are on a 2-0 roll in the opening round. The one prediction that's closest to being fulfilled is the Philadelphia 76ers winning Toronto Raptors. Toronto Raptors, as the game is currently 3-0 Philadelphia's advantage.

NBA 2K23 is an action game with the potential to mimic the real-world impacts of NBA players. As an avid player of the game, I chose to highlight some of the defensive strengths from the game in order to determine the most efficient defensive player out of the three finalist with NBA 2K MT.

The four attributes listed include Perimeter Defense, Interior Defense, Help Defense IQ, and Defensive Consistency and Defensive Consistency, respectively. The candidate with the highest overall score for those categories was determined to be the winner. Here's what each candidate scored.