Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

[KyotoCarl]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

Another great insight by Da Czar! I really wish he would be able to do more strategy videos for the 2K games. Always got me hyped to try new teams and plays.

How awesome it would be if the pick and roll worked like it's supposed to so that using it is a skill game and something you could become good at.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

Yep. I'll even bring the strong side defender in the corner if the strong side is overloaded. I can always drag the defender on the wing over to the corner and get a decent close out back to the wing as long as you anticipate. 1-4 pick and rolls are too easy to defend if their center can't stretch the floor at all.

I should have clarified but I was speaking how I coach my kids in real life with the help side defense at the stop line in a similar set up like this. I like the guy farthest from the ball at the mid line and half way up the lane when the roll occurs.

I should say if I'm going red (trapping the PNR) I will sometimes bring the top defender on weak side to guard against the slip and weak side corner defender in between corner and wing player to close out on a pass or potentially get a steal.

In 2k on PNR I usually always switch to the hedger...

[hear me now]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

If you put awareness to 100, 2k13 is much better than it is in that video.

[demencia_total]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

If logical positioning and movement is implemented correctly this year on offense and defense, then I'm set on current gen for now. This is looking good, but definitely not on the spot yet. Still, worlds better than 2k13.

Great job as always Czar.

[BezO]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

Great analysis, Czar!

But damn! When you showed the NBA footage, I thought you were going to point out 2K14 being similar. As someone that uses a lot of quick plays during user vs user exhibition games, I hope they can address this in a respectable way.

[TheLetterZ]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

I should have clarified but I was speaking how I coach my kids in real life with the help side defense at the stop line in a similar set up like this. I like the guy farthest from the ball at the mid line and half way up the lane when the roll occurs.

I should say if I'm going red (trapping the PNR) I will sometimes bring the top defender on weak side to guard against the slip and weak side corner defender in between corner and wing player to close out on a pass or potentially get a steal.

In 2k on PNR I usually always switch to the hedger...

Good call. I bet that works especially well at the lower (non-college/pro) levels where the point guards don't have the experience to quickly read the defense and make the right pass to the open man. Gives you plenty of time to recover if necessary.

[JBCAROLINAKID]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

What roster were you using with that old Suns team on it?

[svit]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

@DaCzar: great breakdown and giving basics of PNR spacing in offense and defense rotation.

But I don't share your opinion about better spacing in 2k14. It's better than 2k13 for sure, but it's not good spacing. As we can see in the first example, Bargniani is setting the screen on the top of the key. Watch Shumpert movement. He should stay on same position and not moving towards Bargniani. Why? Because one player (Nash in this case) can guard 2 players at the same time. Yes it's true that Shumpert is then moving away from Bargniani, but Nash can cover both players at the same time. He should decide to cover Bargniani or Shumpert...

Second worrying thing is Melo cutting. He should stay still in the corner in case his defender decides to help. Again when Melo cuts, his defender can help against rotating player and can cover Melo at the same time.

I hope 2K will fix this on release.

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

Good call. I bet that works especially well at the lower (non-college/pro) levels where the point guards don't have the experience to quickly read the defense and make the right pass to the open man. Gives you plenty of time to recover if necessary.

High school it works great! Actually you do see alot of this in college as there is no 3 seconds in the paint on defense. You will see Michigan st, gonzaga, Virginia to name a few use this same type of defense in the PNR. Obviously they throw multiple different looks though too. The key in all levels is stopping the pg from penetrating and depends on a good hedge or not. You need to work hard against teams that run alot of high PNR. Hedger needs to beat the picker to the spot.

NBA you see a little but it's tough with defensive 3 second rule as you can't just camp out in the paint like you can in college or high school. My philosophy is pack the paint and make a team beat us from deep. If they go 15-20 from 3 point range it just wasn't our day. But obviously we won't leave the same hot shooter open either. But I'll live with the percentages of shots outside the paint as opposed to in it. So we help more drastically than most teams. But that being said, I think NBA off ball defense is for the most part horrible! To many players taking plays off and standing straight up. That drives me crazy! That's why I prefer the college game over the NBA regular season personally. Better offense and defense and generally better basketball all together...

[iLLosophy]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

I hope these potential improvements happen on B button pick & rolls to and not just PnR playsets.

Nice work Czar.

[thedream2k13]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

Will be funny if idiots that "play tight on everyone " are punished because CPU defenders won't rotate to provide paint protection LOL

[qpc123]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

High school it works great! Actually you do see alot of this in college as there is no 3 seconds in the paint on defense. You will see Michigan st, gonzaga, Virginia to name a few use this same type of defense in the PNR. Obviously they throw multiple different looks though too. The key in all levels is stopping the pg from penetrating and depends on a good hedge or not. You need to work hard against teams that run alot of high PNR. Hedger needs to beat the picker to the spot.

NBA you see a little but it's tough with defensive 3 second rule as you can't just camp out in the paint like you can in college or high school. My philosophy is pack the paint and make a team beat us from deep. If they go 15-20 from 3 point range it just wasn't our day. But obviously we won't leave the same hot shooter open either. But I'll live with the percentages of shots outside the paint as opposed to in it. So we help more drastically than most teams. But that being said, I think NBA off ball defense is for the most part horrible! To many players taking plays off and standing straight up. That drives me crazy! That's why I prefer the college game over the NBA regular season personally. Better offense and defense and generally better basketball all together...

I believe the reason you see help defense rotate the way the they do in 2k14 and in the NBA is largely due to the corner three being a closer shot in the NBA while in college/high school the three point line is same distance from all locations. If you are going to rotate away from a shooter, do it from one that generally has lower chance of making a shot from that location.

[vannwolfhawk]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

I believe the reason you see help defense rotate the way the they do in 2k14 and in the NBA is largely due to the corner three being a closer shot in the NBA while in college/high school the three point line is same distance from all locations. If you are going to rotate away from a shooter, do it from one that generally has lower chance of making a shot from that location.

The thing is though, lets say the top defender takes away the roll man just like in the video and the pg passes to the sg at the 3 point top of key/wing on the opposite weak side. Who has to pick him up and rotate? The corner 3 players defender has to rotate for help which in turn leads to a corner 3 anyways as the sg makes the extra pass to the corner offensive player. Once you rotate like this you start scrambling everywhere. Once you start scrambling something eventually opens up (unless your a Jim Laranaga coached team).

Bottom line is NBA point guards and players are so smart you need to throw multiple looks at them all game. It's almost impossible to stop guys like chris Paul and tony Parker. Look at how Parker ate up Miami last year in turn how Danny green went off with open 3 after open 3. Later in the series Miami adjusted and green wasn't getting those looks he had early in the series.

Ffaacc03 said it earlier with lets get multiple defensive schemes in the game. Hopefully in the next couple years we can see some different variations of how we could defend a PNR or ISO or even a post up! I loved that we had the choice in 2k12 to send a double with any player you wanted. I'd send the double on a post up and i'd switch to weak side defender playing the weak help side. At least you could mix up your defenses sort of by having that 1 feature in for double teams. I guess now that I think about it you could do that on PNR as well with coaching settings set to hedge and go over or under and then just play off ball defense. I think i just had an epiphany! Maybe I need to rethink how I play defense in 2k and on the PNR! Lol

[Da_Czar]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

@DaCzar: great breakdown and giving basics of PNR spacing in offense and defense rotation.

But I don't share your opinion about better spacing in 2k14. It's better than 2k13 for sure, but it's not good spacing. As we can see in the first example, Bargniani is setting the screen on the top of the key. Watch Shumpert movement. He should stay on same position and not moving towards Bargniani. Why? Because one player (Nash in this case) can guard 2 players at the same time. Yes it's true that Shumpert is then moving away from Bargniani, but Nash can cover both players at the same time. He should decide to cover Bargniani or Shumpert...

Second worrying thing is Melo cutting. He should stay still in the corner in case his defender decides to help. Again when Melo cuts, his defender can help against rotating player and can cover Melo at the same time.

I hope 2K will fix this on release.

As I said at the beginning of the video how can you mark progress if you don't compare. Shump can't even make that read of bargs in 2k13. In 2k13 they can move independently AND unrelated to the basketball.

The system is set to space to the ball. The AI could cheat and tell shump before hand where Bargs is going but it doesn't. When shump see's the ball move he wants to maintain his spacing ... then he "see's" okay Bargs is now a part of the equation of our perimeter spacing. Let me make space for him.

This is a serious Advance in 2k's AI for spacing. Now if were at the park. Okay I give you that. But 2k13 could in now way have these decisions made to space. It had pre-programmed actions that were not always linked to what is actually happening on the floor.

Hence the "meeting in the paint" of 2k13. This is a night and day difference. This AI is reacting in unison to ball position and pnr. It doesn't do it as smooth but this is a year one implementation.


Spacing in 2k13 was more so a happy accident where as in 2k14 it is the intention of the system. But remember these are not real people. The AI has to have rules it follows.

Maybe live will crush in this area on next gen or maybe 2k will make that type of advancement where the player can look at 10-12 factors and determine the best spacing in each scenario given the location and speeds of every other player on the floor.

In 2k14 the ai is at least looking at ball position and saying where should I be if the ball is here. or if the ball is moving towards me at a certain speed (Melo)

Pick and roll is a different system and the handoff between the two is not always clean and does need more work.

Being that I didn't say it was perfect I don't think it was misleading of me knowing the differences at the system level to say this is a very real improvement from 2k13 to 2k14 IMO. I do realize that the implementation is not always going to be correct. but the system is built to try to maintain spacing.

Now that the system is in place I'm sure it can be modified and improved for instance specific stuff as you mentioned to make it better.

I have never been of the opinion that if it isn't perfect it isn't better. My videos just try to mark that improvement if there using last years games to say this is where we were and this is where we are.

[mango_prom]

Re: Thoughts on NBA 2K14 Pick and Roll Improvements (Da_Czar)

As I said at the beginning of the video how can you mark progress if you don't compare. Shump can't even make that read of bargs in 2k13. In 2k13 they can move independently AND unrelated to the basketball.

The system is set to space to the ball. The AI could cheat and tell shump before hand where Bargs is going but it doesn't. When shump see's the ball move he wants to maintain his spacing ... then he "see's" okay Bargs is now a part of the equation of our perimeter spacing. Let me make space for him.

This is a serious Advance in 2k's AI for spacing. Now if were at the park. Okay I give you that. But 2k13 could in now way have these decisions made to space. It had pre-programmed actions that were not always linked to what is actually happening on the floor.

Hence the "meeting in the paint" of 2k13. This is a night and day difference. This AI is reacting in unison to ball position and pnr. It doesn't do it as smooth but this is a year one implementation.


Spacing in 2k13 was more so a happy accident where as in 2k14 it is the intention of the system. But remember these are not real people. The AI has to have rules it follows.

Maybe live will crush in this area on next gen or maybe 2k will make that type of advancement where the player can look at 10-12 factors and determine the best spacing in each scenario given the location and speeds of every other player on the floor.

In 2k14 the ai is at least looking at ball position and saying where should I be if the ball is here. or if the ball is moving towards me at a certain speed (Melo)

Pick and roll is a different system and the handoff between the two is not always clean and does need more work.

Being that I didn't say it was perfect I don't think it was misleading of me knowing the differences at the system level to say this is a very real improvement from 2k13 to 2k14 IMO. I do realize that the implementation is not always going to be correct. but the system is built to try to maintain spacing.

Now that the system is in place I'm sure it can be modified and improved for instance specific stuff as you mentioned to make it better.

I have never been of the opinion that if it isn't perfect it isn't better. My videos just try to mark that improvement if there using last years games to say this is where we were and this is where we are.

Thx for the video, nice breakdown. What's important to me is that they've fixed PnR initiation logic in freelance and PnR selection during set plays.

In 2k13, the AI only used a few PnRs out of a team's playbook, with most pop plays (especially 3pt plays) getting ignored completely. Would be huge for spacing if skilled shooting big men would be used properly by the AI.

In freelance, the problem was that the AI struggled to even execute a proper PnR in the first place. I've done many tests letting teams play in freelance only, and it wasn't quite working. What I saw many times pretty much every game was a pick being set for the ball handler, and instead of using it, he passed the ball to another player on the perimeter, messing up the entire possession. Would be nice if 2k tweaked freelance, so we can have the CPU run a proper offense only using basic freelance plays. The tendencies are all in place, they just need to work properly.