Improving Defense 2k16: Pick and Roll issues.

[2_headedmonster]

Its that time of year again.

Since the jump to next-gen I have annually made a thread evaluating the nuances of the pick and roll vs its replication in the 2k series, and this year is no exception. Check out these other lengthy write-ups from the past that not only show the progress that 2k has made, but also how little of a life I have .

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...e-defense.html

and

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...l-defense.html



Im happy to say this year is the closest we've ever been to getting authentic pick and roll offense and defense from a basketball video game ever. Historically the 2k series has struggled to get the defensive big man to be in the right position and aware of his responsibilities. If he wasn't ignoring his assignment, he was totally out of position to carry it out. This year, im happy to say that largely seems to be a problem of the past, and in the instances it does happen it can be believably attributed to a ratings or a simple defensive lapse.

The problem this year seems to be that the roll man doesn't get enough attention as he waltzes to the rim. Combine that with the fact that all bigs dunk in traffic with ease, and its easy to see how this could be a problem. Here's a compilation of different coverages for the pick and roll, and what I want you to focus on is how early the help anticipates and rotates to the roll-man and how someone else helps the helper (recovers directly to, or drifts to the area of the assignment that was abandoned to impede the roll-man)



Now lets look at the weak-side defense of the pick and roll in NBA 2k16. I usually capture my own footage to make sure to include many different variables, but this year I was lazy. Besides, I haven't found 'protect the paint' or any other settings to yield the result im looking for. So I have two vids, one from a random guy and one from OS's own, hard working, Sam Pham. Im sure they wont mind a couple extra views, so here are basic videos of the pick and roll controls being utilized in practice from the 2k view. I want you to focus on the same things as the previous video: the early anticipation, the help rotation and helping the helper.





In the first vid, the guy is mostly manipulating the on-ball defender and going away from the screen, but the result is the same in both. You will notice that the roll man gets to the rim, or two feet from it, CONSISTENTLY before a defender comes over to help. This leads to easy dives to the rim, and is the source of excessive easy alley-oop opportunities. This is identical to my experience, as is the lack of effort to 'help the helper' in any of the sequences. To be fair, the initial help on the roll man is so late any 'help the helper' logic might not get a chance to activate.

Solution?

Anticipation. The solution isn't in extra physical defense, sluggish acceleration or odd hesitations. The answer is to make the defense aware, as they would be in real life, that a pick and roll is about to take place. Ideally they should creep towards the areas they need to be as the screener is approaching to employ any preventative measures.

Bonus issue:

Cant stop the pick and roll or much else with this kind of stuff happening.

https://twitter.com/2_HeadedMonster/...58824645128192


Have I missed anything? Have you found a setting to make the defense position and rotate better? Have you noticed any other kind of pick and roll lapses, or defensive lapses in general? Sound off.

[OldHead]

All big men in this game don't dunk in traffic with ease. Aldrich, Gortat to name a few. One of the bigger complaints this year is the missed lightly contested dunks, by big men. But, I don't want to derail.

[Smirkin Dirk]

I dont think the CPU big dives to the hole with enough speed.

Also, I run lots of 1-4 pops with my PG and Dirk. Too often they will both slide to the PG and leave Dirk open. It's only when I get some rhythem with Dirk going that they really start to stay close to him. They need to switch more.

Great thread by the way. I agree that the PNR game is as good as its been. I love the fact the user needs skill in using picks.

[BrianU]

I'm not as knowledgeable as you on this subject but I do see and have read others opinions of how easy getting assists off pick n rolls are. It feels cheesy to use them against the CPU. I am really hoping 2K looks into improving this area I think it's the biggest issue with the game, this should be getting more attention.

[Sundown]

Nice breakdown 2_headedmonster.

The PnR defense initially looked impressive to me because the hedging and blitzing resembled a lot of what happened against GSW. The attention Curry was getting looked good-- but it seems like whenever this happens the proper rotation onto the rolling big does not happen very reliably.

This results in poor team defense against both the CPU and user, as it often leads to uncontested dunks and layups, rather than kick outs to the corner, or defensive scrambling rotations that lead to ball movement developing into the open shot. So the lack of authentic rotations is actually also hurting authentic offense. Offensive play seems somewhat simplistic-- if you can beat or be beat at one of a couple failure points on the perimeter, then the offensive that follows is somewhat more straightforward. But the failure points are tougher sometimes than they should be against the AI, so while "defense" as a whole might be hard to score against, there's less read and react and flow offense than there could have been.

Come on Sim Nation! You all say you want better defense and sim-- and when a great post that details what the issues are in basic simulation defense dealing with the most common play in basketball, it gets 4 replies and a handful of likes.

Meanwhile threads about overpowered chasedown blocks, heavy perimeter bumping by non-defenders, and defensive warping see hundreds of posts defending these non-sim mechanics in the name of defense. Authentic defense is way more than one-on-one defense and counting stats like blocks and steals. That leans towards how casuals would imagine how defense should be played.

THIS is how you do sim and defense if we really mean it. Hopefully we do mean it.

[Smirkin Dirk]

Great post above.

Its a general consensus that the help D on to the helping D is slow or non-existent.

I dont see a lot of doubles off screens (maybe because I pay with a bad team) but I do see changing coverages.

It's awesome seeing their big drop back. Makes it hard to get to the rim, but the mid range opens up.

I'd love to see some discussion about how the CPU attacks on their PnRs. At the moment I dont feel they attack with it as much as they should.

[BrianU]

I love everything DaCzar wrote about in this gameplay blog. The modules they introduced this year for various areas of CPU IQ. It leads me to have high hopes for the future and present of this game. I was overwhelmed and still am at the improvements in AI this year. It's just unfortunate that below all of that mighty complexity the glaring issue of pick n roll defense exists.

Hopefully we get the attention of the top dogs and there can be a worthy pick n roll defense module for this gem of a game.

[The 24th Letter]

Excellent post and breakdown 2_head....spot on...

Has the dev team ever patched anything regarding the P&R?