What’s up sports gamers and welcome to part 2 of our 3 part defensive tutorial series where we go over all aspects of defense. Today we will be going over post defense (which can translate into helping you defend the paint in general) The thing is post offense is a beautiful thing, you can do hook shots, step backs, up and unders, spin moves…..and spin moves….and spin moves. Well, today we will show you how to slow down the effectiveness of these shots and moves.
Let’s begin.
When your opponent first gets the ball in the post, you don’t want to touch any buttons yet besides LT( L2 on PS4) so you’re in a defensive stance in preparation for a quick spin move. After that brief window has passed you wait for his initial move. If your opponent tries to back you down you can fight back by moving the left stick into the player, this is where his strength rating comes into play. Obviously the higher your rating is the better chance you have of being a human brick wall, but the thing is it’s a give and take right…Pushing the left stick into the opponent for too long can open you up for an easy drive to the basket by your opponent. So only push into him when he first starts to try and back you down and let go shortly after until he attempts to do it again. So when he transitions into his next move your still in solid position to defend.
If he tries any shot away from the basket like a fade, hook or step back move towards him and get your hands up so you can affect the shot. I also can’t stress enough to GET YOUR HANDS UP instead of going for the block, so you don’t open yourself up for any counter moves because of your over eagerness to send his shot into the 10th row. And if he still tries to spin, because you’re not still leaning on the opponent he can’t easily spin off of you for the easy layup/dunk. So once he attempts the spin move laterally with him and again DO NOT JUMP. Instead hold the right stick up to get your hands up in his face. When guys go for the spin they expect to get that animation that wipes the defender completely out the play, regardless of if you’re actually allowing them to get it or not. But, by maintaining solid positioning,  you be surprised how often people panic and resort to attempting to get a bail out call by pump faking 100 times and end up shooting a shot in traffic or get 3 seconds in the key .
Now if you do get beat and he now has a clean look at the hoop, this is the only time I like to fully sell for the block. Sure you might foul him and give up an and 1 but I feel it’s worth the risk then to prevent a guaranteed 2 points.
And Lastly In 2K the players who utilize actually post moves are few and far between, so that would come secondary to being able to stop the spin move to the basket and not draw fouls on shots you could easily defend. If you can eliminate those 2 things from your opponent’s bag of tricks you will already be ahead of the pack.
