Over the next few weeks, SportsGamer will be breaking down some of the most potent strategies and tactics used in Sony's NBA 09, EA's NBA Live 09, and 2K's NBA 2K9. As the games just recently released, we will be starting with some tips aimed at more casual gamers. Don't worry, after we finish brushing up on the basics, we will start exploring some of the more advanced gameplay tips including play-centric strategies.
One effective strategy to slow down your opponent's half-court offense is to manually pressure the ball handler as he brings the ball up court. While this strategy is effective in all three games, we use NBA 2K9 to illustrate this example. In NBA 2K9, this strategy is particularly potent as the defensive AI's ability to anticipate and deflect long passes (especially those directed to players off the screen) is stronger this year. Let's take a look at how this on-ball pressure works.
How it works: |
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| Here, Igoudala comes up to pressure Devin Harris as he receives the in-bounds pass. While Harris could immediately pass the ball to Vince Carter heading up the sideline, forcing the ball out of the hands of your opponent's facilitator will also serve the purpose of slowing down his half-court offense. Harris instead elects to bring the ball up himself. |
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| Igoudala is able to anticipate the majority of Harris' jukes and dribble moves up-court. Note: this is not difficult to do once you become familiar with the different dribble animations in the game. Clearly in this case Harris is about to spin to his right. |
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| Harris is able to get across the half-court line but Igoudala's pressure continues and he is able to get in front of Harris again. |
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| Harris begins to his right and tries to cut back to his left but again Igoudala is able to match move for move. Again, here the animation indicates Harris' cut back and this animation must play out before Harris can try something else. This is what allows you as a defender time to react to these cues. |
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| Finally Harris decides to slow it up and initiate the half-court offense but Igoudala's pressure has already denied the Nets six seconds off the twenty-four second clock. This may not seem like a big deal but it will add an additional time constraint to opponent's who call and run set plays. |
Example 1
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| Just to illustrate what we mean by reading the dribble cues, we again have Harris bringing the ball up court on Igoudala. Notice that in each image Harris telegraphs where he will be going next allowing Igoudala to mirror his movements. The key in adjusting to your opponent is releasing the lock-on defensive trigger every time you notice a new animation starting. This will prevent your defender from getting locked into an animation in which he gets blown by. | |
Example 2 | |
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| While pressuring the ball up-court may seem like risky tactic, there are a few reasons why it's not as as bad as it sounds. The first reason was mentioned above: the defensive AI deflects many more off-screen passes this year than in years past. The second reason we'll show in this example. Here, Samuel Dalembert comes up to pressure Harris up the court and gets beat by a Harris juke. | |
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| From behind however, Dalembert is able to initiate a "steal-from-behind" animation. Although Dalembert has little to no chance of stealing the ball, the animation allows him to catch up to the faster Harris. | |
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| As you can see, the steal animation was enough to actually put Dalembert in front of Harris again. While obviously you won't want to typically bring your bigs out for this purpose, this illustrates how you as a defender can pull your opponent into an animation if you get beat off the dribble. | |
Example 3 | |
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| In fact, this same principle of pulling the ball handler into an animation isn't just effective in harassing your opponent's half-court offense; it can pay dividends when your opponent is on a fast break as well. Here Nets forward Sean Williams leads a fast break with no 76er in position to stop him. Or so you would think. | |
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| Willie Green is able to close the distance via a shot-block animation and force Williams to the line. Not only did this prevent a guaranteed dunk or layup, the animation also forced Williams into a jump shooting animation; a shot that doesn't result in three-point opportunities very often. | |
Harassing your opponent can disrupt the flow of his half-court offense, especially if they rely on running set plays. While the pressure may not always result in turnovers (in fact, you don't want to swipe at the ball as this may leave your defender totally out of position beyond remedy and can result in foul trouble), your opponent will typically have 2-5 fewer seconds to engineer a quality shot. Further, because you can pull relatively close ball handlers into animations, the risk of pressuring the ball is not that great.
