I swept the diamond lg and finished the pink diamond 10-1 so I picked up some things a long the way
1) If you can, I highly suggest getting a defensive anchor for your team. Currently there are only 6 attainable defensive anchors so they are much rarer than last year.
-Diamond Ben Wallace
-Ruby Bill Lambier
-Ruby Rodman
-Ruby Dwight Howard
-Sapphire Joakim Noah
-Sapphire Horace Grant
After adding Rodman, I could immediately tell the difference in how my team played on defense. Everything was sharper and less mistakes were made.
I did the ruby league twice so I did have my struggles early on but once adding Rodman, things took off.
I play a very sim style type of game. I run plays 90% of the game and my biggest weapon has been the post up game. I have Ruby Brad Daugherty who is an animal in the post...therefore I run my offense through him.
This does 2 things in my favor:
1) Slows the game down so my opponent gets less chances to score
2) Allows me to take advantage of weak post defense that most ppl on this game have.
I understand that not everyone will enjoy playing a slow sim style but for those who do, I just wanted to let you know it is very effective. Against guys who offball, I pick them apart with 3pt screen plays that get wide open.
I play onball 90% of the game. The only time I play offball is after the inbound when I extend pressure with my pg and let the CPU pressure them. Once they past half court, I go back on ball. This slows down my opponents offense and is especially important against guys who like to play a crazy fast pace. If my pg plays good enough D, they only have about 15 seconds to score once passing half court so they rush their shots.
Now, the single most difficult thing to defend for me online was the Pick n Roll.....but now I shut it down every game.
I play stay attached to the screener because I want to force the ball handler to take a jumper or make a play instead of them getting an easy roll to the rim.
I've tried soft hedge and catch hedge but from my experience the passing to the paint is broken and most passes just laser over your defenders without them reacting. Stay attached keeps your defender in place to contest the shot and actually discourages them from throwing the pass in the first place since they see your defender there.
Also, put pick dodger on your pg as this will help get around screens.
Most guys online are bad decision makers so if you force them to make a play with their pg, they will mess up. They are so used to getting the easy roll to the rim and can't do much else.
The last important tip that I think makes a big difference is the offball pressure in your defensive settings. Do not leave it on auto. I go in and manually change each opposing player to gap, moderate, or tight accordingly. I truly believe the A.I is broken this year so you can't leave a lot of things on auto. I don't touch onball pressure because I play on ball myself.
This was long but just wanted to share my thoughts and experience of what works for me and what doesn't. At first I was fed up with this game but now I seem to have things under control and can say that sim play does get rewarded.
Btw my toughest games are against guys in the emerald lg with regular teams. I blow out the guys in diamond and pink diamond so there is definitely some difficulty difference in leagues.
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