Welcome to my first defensive breakdown tutorial. Today, I will be introducing a technique I like to use to protect the paint and force your opposite toward the sidelines. My technique is called TAMAR (Take Away Middle And Recover), and we will be utilizing this by taking advantage of the ICE technique that is implemented in NBA 2K and adding in some of our own wrinkles.
Principles:
Force Baseline
Ice Screens
Limit Transition
70% On Ball, 30% Off Ball
Tempt defense to shoot long shots
Double on Drive with superstars only
Always have one weak offensive player to help off for PnRs
Take good shots and control the tempo
Def Controller Settings:
Shot contest: Intense Def
AI assistance: 15
Boxout assistance: 100
POEs:
Limit Transition
Conservative/Neutral aggression (Conservative to avoid more bail out fouls)
Neutral defensive focus (Never do Limit Perimeter or Protect the Paint to begin games)
Crash Def Glass
Universal Defensive Settings:
Force Baseline
ICE screens
No Hedge/Auto
3/4 Bottom for Post defense
Individual Defensive Settings:
Deny any shooters with 78+ 3 point shot
Play tight/deny on only one shooter or else you will have no help defense. For example, take away Klay Thompson when playing the Warriors.
Play moderate on ball with the PG, even if it is Stephen Curry. We can live with our opponents taking long contested 3’s in NBA 2K.
Gap/Gap big men who cannot shoot. This will help bring good help defense.
Play moderate on ball/off ball on anyone with less than 75 3 point or you can leave it on auto. This will also give us more help defense for the drives.
Play behind post either 3/4 or entirely behind.
Defensive Tips:
Play mainly on ball in the half court unless your opponent is turboing then bring some manual help or find a guard to help off of. Do not play 100% on ball or you will get burnt on occasion due to slight delay when switching defenders and leaving them out of position.
Never leave your feet unless you were burnt and you are attempting a block from behind.
Absorb contact in the paint and then feel free to jump at the same time if it a weak layup attempt, but try to stay on your feet most of time.
There will be times where your opponent gets bailed out, but playing on conservative aggression should negate this somewhat. Never…ever try to block perimeter shots.
Close out with RS ALWAYS, regardless if you were playing off ball. Users get a slight bonus when they manually contest.
Playing ICE on Pick and Rolls:
This will force ball handlers to go baseline and your on ball defender will take away the middle. When opponents try to screen towards the middle your on ball defender will
jump in front of the pick and take away any contact that the ball handler tries to initiate on the ball handler defender, therefore there is no separation or contact and no help defense will be required.
This negates any pick and roll opportunities offenses try to create. No hedge is required, since your screener defender is there just to contain the PG until the on ball defender can recover. Again, if your defensive settings and POE’s are correct then there will be no unnecessary help rotations that will leave shooters wide open. You should control the on ball defender mainly when your opponent is setting on ball screens towards the baseline. Play more off ball on screens towards the middle.
Mixing it up can also be effective, where you can bait the ball handler to throw skip passes so you know you will recover to close out. Most people are used to seeing the opposite corner/wing being wide open due to automatic defensive settings and over aggressive online users playing limit perimeter shots.
The counter to beat this is for your opponent to start setting screens towards the baseline, but that is okay since it cuts the floor in half and leaving them less room to operate. We can still also on ball defend this and take away the screen. If you have the proper settings with good off ball help defense then this should be able to be contained.
The one downside to this scheme is the Pick and Pop, but not many online users utilize this at all. This is where you will need to start manually controlling your screener defender off ball and anticipate the pass to the screener on the fade for good close outs. Most stretch 4’s do not shoot well off the dribble, so if you can get a hard close out and force them to put the ball on the floor to drive then that is acceptable too. If they want to take semi-contested 3’s and mid range shots then that is what you want!
I hope you guys learned a thing or two from this defensive introduction. Remember this is just the beginning as we will continue to progress even further for this scheme.