Still don't understand this game. Need tips

[epic FUZZ]

So I've always been bad at it (lose to AI and to humans repeatedly), but I don't get what's even happening. Defense either does nothing or becomes Superman making epic leaps and getting the ball from midair. Most of the time they stand there doing nothing. I don't go for the steal because that almost always causes a reach in foul, if I jump for it, the guy misses. With passes, computer decides (annoyingly frequently) to throw the ball three miles when the player I wanted was right next to the guy with the ball. Shots seem to miss unless I'm right at the basket. It's rare a three pointer lands (so I don't attempt them)

Oh, and defensive players I'm not in control of also causing fouls.

What are the different fouls?

[JMTAotP]

Fouls and Violations

Offensive Fouls that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Charging - When you run over a defender that has his feet set.
Over The Back - Jumping over someone's back when going for a rebound.
Screening - When performing a screen but your feet are not set during contact.

Offensive Violations that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Traveling - Moving your pivot foot after you pick up your dribble.
Goaltending - Touching the ball on it's way down to the basket and before it has hit the rim.
Backcourt violation - Going behind the halfcourt line after you have crossed it.
Offensive 3 Seconds in the Key - You cannot stay in the paint for more than 3 seconds.
5 Second Back to Rim - You can only have your back facing the rim for 5 seconds.
5 Second Inbound - 5 seconds to pass the ball in bounds after a score or foul.
8 Second Halfcourt - 8 seconds to get the ball across the halfcourt line.
24 Second Shotclock - 24 seconds to hit the rim with the basketball.

Defensive Fouls that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Shooting - When defending a shot you touch the shooter's hand or arm.
Blocking - When you attempt to take a charge but do not have your feet set during contact.
Reaching - When you attempt to steal the ball but hit the ballcarriers hand or arm.
Over The Back - Jumping over someone's back when going for a rebound.
Flagrant 1 Foul - This is usually called when intentionally fouling a shooter.
Flagrant 2 Foul - This is usually called when intentionally fouling a shooter as well but appears more violent. Will result in the player who commited the Flagrant 2 being ejected from the game.

Defensive Violations that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Goaltending - Touching the ball on it's way down to the basket and before it has hit the rim.
Defensive 3 Seconds in the Key - You cannot stay in the paint for more than 3 seconds unless covering an offensive player.

Tips

Stealing - When going for on ball steals (stealing from the ball carrier) make sure it is a short player trying to steal from a tall player. Other than that play the passing lanes and steal the ball when they pass it around like they do in real life NBA. After you try to steal from the passing lanes for a while you will start to notice when they are running plays and at that point will know when and where they are going to pass making it very easy to steal. Keep in mind the refs seem to give one free reach. By that I mean you can slap the ballcarrier anywhere and the refs don't seem to call it the first time but if you do it a second time they will call it. When they pass the ball, each time a new player touches the ball, it seems to reset the reach counter and gives you another free reach. When going for on ball steals I look at it as you have 1 chance to try and if you fail don't try again unless they pass it to someone else because they will call a reach if you mess up again vs the same player on the same dribble.

Passing - To avoid wild passes you will want to use direct passing. Bring up the player icons and then push their icon to pass it to them. Passes done this way seem to be way more accurate especailly when being double covered or passing to a player in the post. If you are playing My Player and are on a fast break the AI on your team almost always passes it inside which forces your player to run to the basket even if you wanted to go for a corner 3 point shot. The way I get around this is to call for the pass either before or after the area of the court where the cut to the basket is supposed to be made.

Shooting - Making contested shots in this version of 2k, especially on Hall of Fame, I find hard. I will shoot 85% when I am open but only 33% when contested. You basically have to hit a perfect jumper when contested so obviously we do not want to take contested shots especially from 3 point range. You can tell by the distance your teammate is from his defender when running around the court if they will be open or not when you pass them the ball. You can also call plays which will make your teammates screen your shooter's defenders to get them open or call a pick and roll to get yourself open or have a teammate set a screen then roll out of it for a pass.

Driving - The easiest way to drive the ball to the basket is the isolation play. You just set up somewhere along the 3 point line and call isolation. This will make it so your teammates move away from you taking their defenders with them so it is just you vs your defender. This way when you do a move and get past your defender there won't be some 7 foot tall player there to help him and you will have an open lane to the basket. If a defender does switch off their player to stop your drive then you pass the ball out to the open player (since now 2 defenders are on you) and shoot it. If a defender picks up the shooter you just passed to then there is a 3rd teammate that is guarenteed to be open that you pass to. Keep in mind that when driving the ball a lot of player contact is allowed as long as the defenders do not slap your arms or hands. This means they can use their body. If you try to drive straight at a defender they will just put their hands up and let you slam into their body like a wall and this will cause you to drop the ball during the middle of your shot or result in very low percentage shot attempts. This is also why it is hard to drunk on taller players and you should layup around them.

Rebounding - You want to be under the ball to be the one to actually come down with it. If you are not under the ball then your player will attempt to reach and tip the ball. If you are not in reaching range then your player will just jump. You also want to jump pretty much as soon as the ball hits the rim. If it don't bounce to your side you were not going to get it anyway but if it does bounce to your side then you will be the first one to get it. Just make sure not to jump over someone who is boxing you out because that will result in an Over The Back foul.

Defense - In Man to Man you just want to keep your body between the person you are defending and the basket. In Zone you just want to defend your zone and if the person you are defending leaves that zone then you let him leave and your teammate covering the zone he moves to will defend him. Time when you think they are going to shoot to block or contest their shot and time when they are going to pass to a teammate to steal the ball.

Teammates - They are always going to make mistakes and throw a poor pass or commit a foul from time to time. It wouldn't feel as real if they didn't make mistakes and only you could make mistakes.

[epic FUZZ]

Origineel geplaatst door JMTAotP:

Fouls and Violations

Offensive Fouls that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Charging - When you run over a defender that has his feet set.
Over The Back - Jumping over someone's back when going for a rebound.
Screening - When performing a screen but your feet are not set during contact.

Offensive Violations that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Traveling - Moving your pivot foot after you pick up your dribble.
Goaltending - Touching the ball on it's way down to the basket and before it has hit the rim.
Backcourt violation - Going behind the halfcourt line after you have crossed it.
Offensive 3 Seconds in the Key - You cannot stay in the paint for more than 3 seconds.
5 Second Back to Rim - You can only have your back facing the rim for 5 seconds.
5 Second Inbound - 5 seconds to pass the ball in bounds after a score or foul.
8 Second Halfcourt - 8 seconds to get the ball across the halfcourt line.
24 Second Shotclock - 24 seconds to hit the rim with the basketball.

Defensive Fouls that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Shooting - When defending a shot you touch the shooter's hand or arm.
Blocking - When you attempt to take a charge but do not have your feet set during contact.
Reaching - When you attempt to steal the ball but hit the ballcarriers hand or arm.
Over The Back - Jumping over someone's back when going for a rebound.
Flagrant 1 Foul - This is usually called when intentionally fouling a shooter.
Flagrant 2 Foul - This is usually called when intentionally fouling a shooter as well but appears more violent. Will result in the player who commited the Flagrant 2 being ejected from the game.

Defensive Violations that you have to worry about in NBA 2k:
Goaltending - Touching the ball on it's way down to the basket and before it has hit the rim.
Defensive 3 Seconds in the Key - You cannot stay in the paint for more than 3 seconds unless covering an offensive player.

Tips

Stealing - When going for on ball steals (stealing from the ball carrier) make sure it is a short player trying to steal from a tall player. Other than that play the passing lanes and steal the ball when they pass it around like they do in real life NBA. After you try to steal from the passing lanes for a while you will start to notice when they are running plays and at that point will know when and where they are going to pass making it very easy to steal. Keep in mind the refs seem to give one free reach. By that I mean you can slap the ballcarrier anywhere and the refs don't seem to call it the first time but if you do it a second time they will call it. When they pass the ball, each time a new player touches the ball, it seems to reset the reach counter and gives you another free reach. When going for on ball steals I look at it as you have 1 chance to try and if you fail don't try again unless they pass it to someone else because they will call a reach if you mess up again vs the same player on the same dribble.

Passing - To avoid wild passes you will want to use direct passing. Bring up the player icons and then push their icon to pass it to them. Passes done this way seem to be way more accurate especailly when being double covered or passing to a player in the post. If you are playing My Player and are on a fast break the AI on your team almost always passes it inside which forces your player to run to the basket even if you wanted to go for a corner 3 point shot. The way I get around this is to call for the pass either before or after the area of the court where the cut to the basket is supposed to be made.

Shooting - Making contested shots in this version of 2k, especially on Hall of Fame, I find hard. I will shoot 85% when I am open but only 33% when contested. You basically have to hit a perfect jumper when contested so obviously we do not want to take contested shots especially from 3 point range. You can tell by the distance your teammate is from his defender when running around the court if they will be open or not when you pass them the ball. You can also call plays which will make your teammates screen your shooter's defenders to get them open or call a pick and roll to get yourself open or have a teammate set a screen then roll out of it for a pass.

Driving - The easiest way to drive the ball to the basket is the isolation play. You just set up somewhere along the 3 point line and call isolation. This will make it so your teammates move away from you taking their defenders with them so it is just you vs your defender. This way when you do a move and get past your defender there won't be some 7 foot tall player there to help him and you will have an open lane to the basket. If a defender does switch off their player to stop your drive then you pass the ball out to the open player (since now 2 defenders are on you) and shoot it. If a defender picks up the shooter you just passed to then there is a 3rd teammate that is guarenteed to be open that you pass to. Keep in mind that when driving the ball a lot of player contact is allowed as long as the defenders do not slap your arms or hands. This means they can use their body. If you try to drive straight at a defender they will just put their hands up and let you slam into their body like a wall and this will cause you to drop the ball during the middle of your shot or result in very low percentage shot attempts. This is also why it is hard to drunk on taller players and you should layup around them.

Rebounding - You want to be under the ball to be the one to actually come down with it. If you are not under the ball then your player will attempt to reach and tip the ball. If you are not in reaching range then your player will just jump. You also want to jump pretty much as soon as the ball hits the rim. If it don't bounce to your side you were not going to get it anyway but if it does bounce to your side then you will be the first one to get it. Just make sure not to jump over someone who is boxing you out because that will result in an Over The Back foul.

Defense - In Man to Man you just want to keep your body between the person you are defending and the basket. In Zone you just want to defend your zone and if the person you are defending leaves that zone then you let him leave and your teammate covering the zone he moves to will defend him. Time when you think they are going to shoot to block or contest their shot and time when they are going to pass to a teammate to steal the ball.

Teammates - They are always going to make mistakes and throw a poor pass or commit a foul from time to time. It wouldn't feel as real if they didn't make mistakes and only you could make mistakes.

This looks like it will take a while to get. I just want to play the game, why does it have to make it so hard

Scored higher than what a MyCareer team wanted and still they were all nope, and then the game gives me a 10 day deal O_o

[epic FUZZ]

EDIT: Having played almost half of my first game, maybe it was good that the other teams didn't draft me
EDIT: I was beginning to like it, but it's broken. Your team mates waste the entire shot clock standing in one spot and then miss. They never pass to you, therefore you can't do anything and get a poor score at the end. You spend most of the game just watching it. The game subs you in when the opposition is 20 points ahead, caused by your team mysteriously playing poorly (I'll be on the bench so nothing I can do)

[JMTAotP]

When you get playmaking to level 20 then you should get a badge called "on court coach" which makes it so your teammates pass you the ball when you call for it or will shoot the ball when you tell them to. Keep in mind I am not exactly sure if playmaking level 20 is what is required for "on court coach" but I believe that it is.

If you are already down 20 points when you get subbed in and have no chance to win then you might as well just pad your game grade. If you are going to lose then just take "good shot selection" shots and they will stack up to you getting a good grade even if you don't make any in the basket. If you get a rebound just take it to the other side of the court and shoot it. If you have no chance to win the game then this might be a good option to try out as better game grades earn higher VC rewards and thus faster attribute upgrades.

[JMTAotP]

Sorry I noticed I overlooked this part:

Your team mates just stand there holding the ball because you are supposed to be in a certain position on the court for them to run the play the coach called but you are not going to that position, thus they wait. They can only wait until the shotclock runs out and then they have to take a shot. That is why that is happening to you. Make sure you go to settings and set it so it shows all plays and then when on the court you will see markers showing you where you should be and where you need to go to run the play.

[epic FUZZ]

Origineel geplaatst door JMTAotP:

Sorry I noticed I overlooked this part:

Your team mates just stand there holding the ball because you are supposed to be in a certain position on the court for them to run the play the coach called but you are not going to that position, thus they wait. They can only wait until the shotclock runs out and then they have to take a shot. That is why that is happening to you. Make sure you go to settings and set it so it shows all plays and then when on the court you will see markers showing you where you should be and where you need to go to run the play.

I found out they run set plays with some Google searching lay night. Wouldn't it be better if they reacted to what's going on like other sports games do? Otherwise it's a bit scripted

[JMTAotP]

They run plays in real life like almost every possesion. It really depends on the coach but most players don't get the freedom of Curry and Harden to shoot 3s whenever they want or to always touch the ball like LeBron and Durant. They run plays to get shooters open or to clear lanes to the basket. The only time people just shoot the ball in real life is if they have to, are wide open, on a fast break, or are a player like Curry. Even when Curry shoots a lot of his 3s he calls a screen play and does a step back dribble to get open.

Once you get the "on court coach" badge you can pretty much play the game anyway you want. You can ballhog it or play it like real life basketball but until that point you are stuck conforming to what the coach wants.

If you want to try to make the AI force a pass to you without having to run through the motions of a play then just put a screen on his defender then roll out of it. If you are open when you roll out then the AI will likely pass it to you but not everytime if you are low rated.

[epic FUZZ]

Origineel geplaatst door JMTAotP:

They run plays in real life like almost every possesion. It really depends on the coach but most players don't get the freedom of Curry and Harden to shoot 3s whenever they want or to always touch the ball like LeBron and Durant. They run plays to get shooters open or to clear lanes to the basket. The only time people just shoot the ball in real life is if they have to, are wide open, on a fast break, or are a player like Curry. Even when Curry shoots a lot of his 3s he calls a screen play and does a step back dribble to get open.

Once you get the "on court coach" badge you can pretty much play the game anyway you want. You can ballhog it or play it like real life basketball but until that point you are stuck conforming to what the coach wants.

If you want to try to make the AI force a pass to you without having to run through the motions of a play then just put a screen on his defender then roll out of it. If you are open when you roll out then the AI will likely pass it to you but not everytime if you are low rated.

Why run plays. IMO that takes any fun out of it, because it's just scripted in some spreadsheet now rather than reacting to what's actually happening. Other sports (and their respective sports games) you can do whatever you want so long as a) no rules are broken and b) you win. Football's a prime example

Also what do you do when your team can't defend to save their life? I'm busy with 1 guy and the rest of the team is just standing around. Was thinking why don't you just steal the ball? The AI never seems to pick that option, unless it's against you, instead team mates draw fouls. In the match I'm playing now, team mates are missing every rebound which means the opposition scores. To start with they were playing well, now they are suddenly incapable of playing

Wouldn't be such a problem if they explained things in game (somewhere where I can find it) like other sports games do (FIFA, Codemasters F1 games, Project Cars etc. Even fighting games are stepping up their game in this area) at the relevant time, but there;s virtually no guidance from the game which results in threads like this one and turning new players off the franchise for good

If it weren't for achievements I wouldn't be starting this game at all. As it stands, I can't start the game, just uninstalled it

[JMTAotP]

Professional teams in basketball run plays because it puts the players in the right spots at the right moments to create openings to score. A lot more efficiently than running up the court and throwing the ball at the basket. FIFA, football (soccer to me) has plays as well:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVzz5YBFXp.8AlflXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE0bDJ2MjVoBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE3NjNfMQRzZWMDcGl2cw--?p=soccer+plays&fr=yfp-t-593&fr2=piv-web

Just because you don't use the plays don't change the fact real teams do in order to get easier attempts to score. Like I said before once you get the on court coach you can ballhog but until then you will have to play regular games instead of my carrer if you do not want to run plays and just want to run up and down the court shooting the ball.

[epic FUZZ]

Origineel geplaatst door JMTAotP:

Professional teams in basketball run plays because it puts the players in the right spots at the right moments to create openings to score. A lot more efficiently than running up the court and throwing the ball at the basket. FIFA, football (soccer to me) has plays as well:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVzz5YBFXp.8AlflXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE0bDJ2MjVoBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE3NjNfMQRzZWMDcGl2cw--?p=soccer+plays&fr=yfp-t-593&fr2=piv-web

Just because you don't use the plays don't change the fact real teams do in order to get easier attempts to score. Like I said before once you get the on court coach you can ballhog but until then you will have to play regular games instead of my carrer if you do not want to run plays and just want to run up and down the court shooting the ball.

I don't have much issue with them using plays in real life. That's how the sport works. I personally prefer sports where plays aren't a thing, e.g. motorsport (even though you could say pitstop strategy is a play) and football. We rarely get American sports here, but the first time we got the Superbowl (which I understand relies heavily on plays as well) it was good. Got tired of all the ads when American football came back on TV again

EDIT: If the fact a game is using a play becomes obvious to me then it takes away from the enjoyment for me. Fool me properly and we have no issue if you understand what I'm saying. To me, something felt off about the way NBA 2K15 went about playing. Re-downloading it now though

[JMTAotP]

It is really just the my carrer mode that forces you to use plays while you just start out. In regular games the AI you play against will still call plays though like pick and rolls. You can also play blacktop battles from 1v1 to 5v5 vs the AI and there is no playcalling involved at all. It is just like street rules basically. The AI tends to shoot a lot of 3s in blacktop battles if you play against players like Kevin Durant.