[DJ]

Played one half of the Clippers @ Blazers game last night, this time on All-Star difficulty with Ratings-Only for Jump Shots/FT enabled. It was a 48-47 game (I was the Blazers) with Portland up. I would've loved to have finished but I was drained at that point and went to bed.

Clippers ran some nice offensive sets. Griffin had the hot hand early and the CPU did a good job of getting him the ball on every position. He didn't shoot every time he had the ball, but he at least touched it so that the offense was at least working through him during the possession. I believe he had 16 points in the 1st half, including a nice dunk off an alley-oop (not in transition, either) from CP3.

I didn't see anything crazy from the CPU but was surprised that the Clippers only attempted three 3-pointers in the half.

Portland is just a very fun team to use. A lot of talent on the wings and Aldridge is a beast in the paint (and as we know, he can stretch the floor as well with his perimeter shooting). I may just run a Dynasty with them and see how it goes.

I hit a nice step-back J with Dame and was also able to raise up and hit a straight-away 3-pointer with him late in the first half. Batum and Matthews also connected from deep and I believe I was 4-of-12 from long-range in the half.

It's still very hard to hit shots over the defense, even if they aren't necessarily challenging the shot. They just have to be in range and it seems the shot will be a miss. That said, I did hit a couple of shots with the CPU right in my grill, so it does happen from time-to-time.

What's funny with this game is I just play and have fun. I know it's not perfect but rather than focus on the negatives, I just try and enjoy the game for what it is and it's offering me a lot of entertainment right now and that's all I care about.

I know we don't have sliders this year (I'm actually OK with that as I'm trying to get away from adjusting sliders). The difficulty for now is spot-on for me but I'd imagine over time that may change. It's too bad there wasn't options for gameplay settings similar to the NHL series (casual, simulation, hardcore simulation) to me, that would've potentially solved some issues without having full slider editing available.

Anyway, just wanted to say this game is fun and a nice alternative to 2K.