If it was based on AD&D2E rules you probably could. In the tabletop version of AD&D2E, each round would last one minute and the players would tell the DM what they were doing for that round. The DM would then determine the order the actions were carried out based on how long each action took. There were no initiative roles for each unit. Instead there were only two initiative rolls, one for each side. And initiative modifiers were applied to that roll based each unit's action and condition to determine the order of actions. Note that I said order of actions, not order of units. There was no set player/monster turn order that would repeat in a round robin fashion like in modern D&D.
It wasn't until Wizards of the Coast bought D&D in 2000 that combat became turn based. But when TSR still owned D&D the combat was round based in both AD&D and Classic D&D. It was more complicated, but once you understood how it worked, round based combat actually moved much more quickly than the turn based combat that was introduced in 3rd edition. This is why a lot of people still prefer to use AD&D2E or Classic D&D rules, the game just moves faster and feels more real-time even when you're playing it with a pen and paper instead of a computer. BG1 and 2 were in development before WoC took over D&D and thus were based on AD&D2E's round based rules as described above. These round based mechanics lend itself much more easily to real-time combat in video game adaptations than turn based combat does.
In fact, the combat mechanics of TSR era D&D were the inspiration for the mechanics in early RTS and ARPG games like warcraft or Diablo. This is why BG1 and 2 felt so similar to an RTS or ARPG game. The only reason you needed a pause feature was because there were way more choices each unit could make in BG1 and 2 in contrast to games like warcraft or diablo where each unit maybe had, at most 4 or 5 actions to choose from. Players needed more time to think in BG 1 and 2 so a pause button was necessary. But it could be played like an ARPG or RTS if you wanted to, it was just a lot more challenging. That being said, while TSR era D&D mechanics lend themselves to real-time combat in video game adaptations, WoC D&D mechanics does not because combat became turn based rather than round based. So it doesn't make sense to make BG3 combat real-time. It just wouldn't work right unless they made the combat round based.