I'm going to quickly run down a few things that I have noticed while playing the game.

When players get tied up with the ball, there are a couple of things that can happen. You either get a jump ball or you rip it out and continue the play before a jump ball is called. Also, when doubles approach, players with a high skill level can split it, my jaw dropped on more than a few occasions when T.J. Ford was killing me.

On driving layups, taking it strong to the hole, some players can cover the ball and it looks fantastic, sometimes they'll fall to the ground after a foul or non call, looks great.

When players get fouled, some of them cross their arms, mumble under their breath, others will admit to the foul and hold their hand up, then there is Sheed. He'll wave the ref off, emphatically sometimes. It's pretty scary how some of these guys react, lol. I've even seen Sheed on the floor after getting called for a block and waving his hand at the ref like he couldn't believe the call. No techs have been handed out.

Playing D and weaving through screens is just plain fun. Tons of new animations, including some very nice rebounding ones. More sig styles and just an incredible amount of new animations, as you'll see when I post more movies this week. KG punches his chest after a big shot, but there are so many other "little things" in here as well.

The offense takes advantage of switching defenders. Had KG posting up little Derek Fisher, dunked on him. Other times when you see a mismatch, the AI is smart enough to change the defender. Had Duncan guarding Kobe at the top, before I could make my move, Bowen switched up. It was very cool to see.

The crowd animation is great and while you see some of the same people scattered around, I think it is much better than last year, although the waving #1 fingers are a little over the top sometimes. The fans react realistically, but there are still odd times where the audio just drops out, instead of fading. When there are big plays that happen, the atmosphere is bananas.

You'll see a few flops or non calls on charging/blocking fouls and you will see blocking calls called correctly when players are in the circle. Sometimes the call will be made, other times it will be a no call.

Free throw routines are great. Arenas has the around the back, etc. a cool example of something I saw, at the end of the game I had Kobe taking FT's, crowd chants MVP, he blows the FT...steps back, deep breath gets ready for next one, wipes both hands on his jersey, takes the freebie, nothing but net, as he leaves his hand "up there"...

For timeouts, you have 20 seconds and full timeouts. On the 20 second timeouts, you have 20 seconds to make your changes, on full timeouts, you get 60 seconds.

At the end of the game, you get a Jordan Player of the Game, top 3 plays, hot zones and signature highlights. Players head to their tunnels as well.

Not seeing stat overlays in exhibition, season or association, announcing team will mention when players reach certain points, rebounds, etc. but no overlays. Looked in the presentation options and don't see anything regarding overlays.

Changing shots in midair, absolutely love that they brought this back.

Players smack the backboard on layups and/or blocked shot attempts.

Off the ball defense is nice, the AI doesn't just sit there either, they will fake an inside move and pop outside and lose you, among other things, like call for a screen, etc.

In the player matchups, you can stick Bowen on Kobe, if you want to, so putting the best defender on the best offensive player is something a lot of people will like.

Need to turn up the fouls, as I'm not seeing many on default.

Game speed set to 45, seems to be perfect.

Off the ball AI is much better this year, players setting picks, running back doors, etc.

I'd like to see players cutting harder when coming off screens, most of the time they do, but there are a few times when they actually walk around them or walk to their spot.

BTW, the game runs at 60 FPS, it's just my hardware and the encoding makes it look a bit jumpy. I have to find a better way of encoding to make it look less jittery. It's smooth as butter when playing the game.

The movies you see at the beginning of the game are on exhibition games, those player movies aren't viewable when playing season and association, no need to worry if a player is traded that it won't show up right, since it's only shown in exhibition.