Weekly Challenges (2K18)

[harryl]

Just thought I'd start up a new thread to discuss whatever the latest Weekly Challenges are...

[harryl]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Tried to play the current #4 Challenge vs. the Heat non-cheesily a few times and, each time, was doing quite well...until I wasn't. Now I get what everyone was saying about this.

It's definitely beatable and it can be beaten straight, even with a modest lineup, if you are really methodical and disciplined.

I ended up finding it very easy to beat in a moderately cheesy way, in terms of Offense. And also tailoring defensive settings in a way that makes basic sense.

Used this lineup:

• Gold Avery Bradley
• Gold Carmelo Anthony
• Sapphire Kawhi Leonard
• Gold Pau Gasol
• Gold Brook Lopez

1. Offensively, ISO Dragic and/or Waiters and beat up on them. And use a Center who can shoot to keep Whiteside honest and not allow him to camp by the paint. You'll want to make sure you're running a 4- or 5-out offense to get your bigs (and Whiteside) well away from the paint.

I assigned Kawhi to guard Waiters and Carmelo to guard Winslow. And my staple was to get the ball to Carmelo either on the perimeter or to have him post up, call for ISO Quick Play with Dion Waiters guarding him, and then just beat him up.

You generally can post-spin Melo on Waiters. You can also explode past him from Triple Threat. Or spin-explode. Or post up; if Melo is hot, his post fade can be money over a smaller crap defender.

Make sure, again, to be using a freelance that has your 5 outside, otherwise Whiteside will be camping just outside the key on the weak side. Even if your 5 is in the weak corner, Whiteside is still going to be cheating way over toward the key. But, if so, he's generally a little too late to block the drive and will be more prone to fouling.

Mix things up with P&R or whatever else you do. It's more effective to not be monotonous, and less boring.

2. Defensively, I went with the following settings/strategy...
Dragic: Moderate On-Ball/Moderate Off-Ball Pressure, Go Under

• Waiters: Tight/Tight, Go Over
• Winslow: Gap/Gap, Go Under
• Johnson: Moderate/Gap
• Whiteside: Moderate/Gap

Obviously, the concerns are Dragic and Waiters. It might even help to set Double Team on Drive on these guys, but I think auto Help gets what you need. Put high-end defenders on him. I had Sapphire Kawhi on Waiters but, really, Avery Bradley or P-Bev or Thabo could probably do fine. The reason Kawhi was most valuable is to make it impossible for the CPU to hide Waiters on someone other than Carmelo. (If they put Winslow on Melo, then I'd work Waiters in ISO with Kawhi.)

The key is that you just let Winslow take as many deep jumpers as the Heat want him to take. He's a bricklayer. Use his defender to double up on pressuring any drive by Dragic and Waiters and they'll be really inefficient and ineffectual. If they pass to Winslow and he takes a three because shot clock is low and he's totally wide open, that's a great outcome for you.
You can also cheat off Johnson a fair amount. He can hit shots if you leave him wide open...and he may hit some crazy contested shots if the CPU is out to **** you. But better that than let Dragic lift a ton of floaters over your head or have Waiters drop ridiculous and-ones.

To me, stopping Dragic and Waiters is not that big of a deal. The harder thing, with a low-end lineup, was getting enough points to overcome the starting deficit.

[Crazytwisted123]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

post 2 hoooray hooray

[BruhBruh]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

This was awesome thank you so much. I think it took me like 5 tries, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

[harryl]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Next Weekly Challenges Reward will be Ruby Bruce Bowen, who is just simply perfect, as the embodiment of a 3&D wingman:

http://2kmtcentral.com/18/players/8060/bruce-bowen

Did not expect the really high 95/94 Open/Contested 3, and definitely not the 85 Off-Dribble 3. High 80's for mids.

In terms of his Defensive ratings, he's perfect to stay in front of guys and put on a strong Contest. Will not be good for stealing or blocking.

Also is going to end up being on the slow side, but can have long-lasting utility defending better and better wings if you slap a Speed/Accel shoe on him. I need to take a closer look at what's available. To me, the ideal would be to max out his Contest and also get big boost to Accel.

[BruhBruh]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Next Weekly Challenges Reward will be Ruby Bruce Bowen, who is just simply perfect, as the embodiment of a 3&D wingman:

http://2kmtcentral.com/18/players/8060/bruce-bowen

Did not expect the really high 95/94 Open/Contested 3, and definitely not the 85 Off-Dribble 3. High 80's for mids.

In terms of his Defensive ratings, he's perfect to stay in front of guys and put on a strong Contest. Will not be good for stealing or blocking.

Also is going to end up being on the slow side, but can have long-lasting utility defending better and better wings if you slap a Speed/Accel shoe on him. I need to take a closer look at what's available. To me, the ideal would be to max out his Contest and also get big boost to Accel.

how were this weeks challenges?

[PRBoricua]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Having a real tough time with the last challenge against the Pelicans who have a combo of Davis & Cousins, who are both amethysts. They destroy me on the glass and in the lane by throwing back everything. Not to mention they can both shoot mid-range and never mind how good they are in the post.

Add in Jrue Holiday, who can't miss from anywhere on the court and this one is pretty ****ing difficult.

Have played them four or five times already, I hang in there until the 4th quarter then they just run away with it after that.

[AussieAdz19]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Next Weekly Challenges Reward will be Ruby Bruce Bowen, who is just simply perfect, as the embodiment of a 3&D wingman:

http://2kmtcentral.com/18/players/8060/bruce-bowen

Did not expect the really high 95/94 Open/Contested 3, and definitely not the 85 Off-Dribble 3. High 80's for mids.

In terms of his Defensive ratings, he's perfect to stay in front of guys and put on a strong Contest. Will not be good for stealing or blocking.

Also is going to end up being on the slow side, but can have long-lasting utility defending better and better wings if you slap a Speed/Accel shoe on him. I need to take a closer look at what's available. To me, the ideal would be to max out his Contest and also get big boost to Accel.

Kind of wishing I was completing these challenges now, I'm using his Gold card in Supermax coming off the bench and is a budget beast, basically a 6'8'' Danny Green/Klay Thompson.

[dgordoncpa]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

I am also having problems with the Pelicans. I am shutting down AD, but Cousins is killing me, and Hill is like Steph from 3 point land.

Any suggestions on what defensive scheme and POE to use on these guys??

[inhumanWMD]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Just played the challenge against Spurs...I was up 115-112 and Tony Parker hits a 90 footer to tie the game. I've never seen so many full court shots go in until this year's myteam. RIP

[BellSKA]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

This weeks challenges have been rough. I finally made it to the Warriors and it's a little over the top. We get it 2K, the Warriors are great. Did you have to make Klay an AMY? Does anyone think Klay is an AMY? I'm really curious. I'm happy with him a high Ruby.

My biggest gripe has nothing to do with the weekly games, it's the missed layups. I miss more layups than I do free throws and 3's combined. I'm not talking about forced, 2 guys in your face layups. I'm talking about up and unders where the defender air mails you but still manages to throw off your timing enough that you miss. Or when you have a clear offensive rebound on the opposite side of the glass. The ball side defender miraculously recovers out of their boxout and creates enough pressure that you miss your layup long. But don't worry, your other big will get the rebound because his player left the boxout to contest the layup...but wait. That player is back and you blow another layup. Happens way to often. I'd much rather everyone shoot 100% from 2 feet than the current situation.

Why doesn't "No 3" ever work? Why can't you combine that with pressure the ball defensive strategy and have it work? I have the bigs covered, but for some reason my guards will float down to below the free throw line to "Help". Leaving shooters open. Happens quite a bit. Stop having these adjustments if you're not actually going to adjust anything.

If you have a moment, take notice at Dreymond Green's steal swipe cheese. It's like playing a ProAM game.

I can complain about a lot, but the short of it is there haven't been many cupcakes this year. We've been given more games to play, with the same paltry payouts as last year. Some even worse in my opinion. I've bought one league box and one historic box. I can't justify spending my money on this mode anymore. I'm starting to find that I can't justify spending my time on this mode either.

2K is going to lose the older working professional with families demo. And I hate to break it to a lot of people, that's a lot of revenue. We don't have time to grind, but we have money. It would behove 2K to take that into consideration.

[harryl]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

I've only done the first three so far and even they didn't feel like Pro level walks in the park. Forgot bout the 4 threes req in the third Challenge till I got my 3rd with about 1:30 to go. Got the 4th with bout 20 seconds left because Seth Curry saved my hide by greening a release on a heavily contested shot.

I'll probably get enraged and disown this but I'm sort of looking forward to a high level game versus high level Warriors cards to torment myself by trying to figure Switch All D.

[BellSKA]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

Just beat the Warriors, whew! What a punch in the face.

Ran Pace & Space with Alvin Gentry at Coach. Selected players off that.

Starting 5
Ruby D. Fisher
Ruby L Hughes
Emerald Giannis
Emerald Boris Diaw
Gold D. Howard

Bench
Lowry & Derozen Duo
Ruby B. Danbridge
Emerald Millsap
Emerald Embiid

Be forewarned...there will be cheese! I ran "No 3's" and emphasis on Rebound on D. Under coaching D settings I put on ball to Smother, off ball to Moderate, and Switch ALL. I played as the C the entire game on defense. I played over the top of picks to minimize 3's.

Kept a 5 point cushion after the 1st. Just play like that 5 is actually zero and you'll be good.42 seconds I was up 11 and they dropped 2 bombs (because why not). D magically stopped covering open shooters. I highly recommend changing out players for fresh legs constantly.

Wish everyone good fortune and if you get frustrated, always remember that controller costs $60.

[BronzeBeat]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

That Warriors one was pretty hard. I had Jeff Teague and Maker starting, and they would leave Maker open almost everytime on the pick and pop, he went 7-10 from 3. And I still would've lost if Teague didn't surprise me by posterizing them a few times.

[harryl]

Re: Weekly Challenges (2K18)

That Warriors one was pretty hard. I had Jeff Teague and Maker starting, and they would leave Maker open almost everytime on the pick and pop, he went 7-10 from 3. And I still would've lost if Teague didn't surprise me by posterizing them a few times.

CPU seems to have tendency to sag out of contest range on bigs, even when they have high Open 3. I also find they do this regularly to Thon and I seem to hit high % of "okay, I'll shoot it then" threes from the zone just outside his one midrange hot zone. Don't know if that's coincidence or causal.

CPU will do the same with the Gasols and Brook Lopez. Maybe it has to do with the CPU going off of the programmed Tendency for shooting threes.

The first three challenges were demanding enough that I don't think I want to dick around with the final two. I hate repeating PvCPU games and might at least run an A-Squad starting lineup with Gold bench.