NBA 2K17 new defensive settings discussion: better rotations ? less back doors ?

[itchyroll_51]

*I will add to his thread as more defensive settings news come to light

For many years, we have always been limited with the options we get for off ball defensive settings. It was either gap, moderate, auto, tight, and deny. These settings always got us in trouble against elite spot up shooters or stretch bigs. We always had to deny those type of players, which will in turn get us back door-ed 24/7 or over rotating.

In the video breakdown below you can see me using 2K17 news, real NBA film, and 2K16 footage to show just how big the new addition of the "hard close out" setting can be.



Sam Pham

[LorenzoDC]

If it is true there's a hard close out option as you've described, and we can use it instead of deny for perimeter shooters who are one dimensional offensively, then that will help a lot with defensive integrity.

It will mean help defense will be much more effective because we won't have to assign teammates to deny and therefore overplay unnecessarily. At the same time, if rotations work right then a defender assigned to a hard close out opponent who then collapses to help will be replaced by a guy who will know to close out hard if the ball kicks back out. We haven't seen that level of AI defense yet in 2k.

And of course, as you point out, it will help with the double edged problem of back door cuts being too effective and common in response to deny defensive assignments. This should help defenses in 2k act and operate more like actual NBA defenses. This in turn could also allow more game utility for freelance systems that are not just stretch based systems like 4 out or Warriors as in 2k16.

If defense is better and more balanced in managing both the perimeter and the paint as well as possible, then motion based freelances may become a bit more useful as ways to get guys open for shots. . . as long as they don't take too long to develop and as long as guys don't keep getting "stuck" on each other as they move around the paint, come around off ball screens and the baseline.

Hopefully the game is developing so that spread PnR offenses are not the only best way to go on offense. The game needs more strategic variety for play styles and offense.

We'll have to see how it operates in action.