Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

[RaychelSnr]

If you have been struggling with defense with NBA Live 09, check out our newest article by Christian McLeod. In his article, Christian highlights five defensive tips which should help you improve your game.

"As a seasoned veteran of the NBA 2K series the last 9 years, it should come as no surprise that learning how to play NBA Live 09 was a bit of a struggle. As many of you know, Live 09's control scheme takes some getting used to, and is a completely new experience to many, even those who have played the Live series in the past. The biggest struggles I faced early on during my gameplay experience dealt with the defensive side of the ball. I figured I would put together some quick tips to help with defense, and hopefully help some of you out that are still having a tough time keeping opponents from lighting you up. Without further delay, here are my five keys to playing successful defense in NBA Live 09."

[23]

This is stuff we've basically been telling people the last few days.

EA's system is not 2k's and most of us 2k players will have to unlearn the usual way of playing defense to understand this one, and once you do, you discover that its so much better.

Da_Czar from seeing one video said he thought EA's defensive system was much better than 2k's, and from whatever it was he saw, Im a believer in his keen eye for the game.

This system breaks you from being lazy, and makes you play defense as if you were on the court. You have to move your feet, carefully shade the ball handler, square up, take your speed into account , and if you over gamble well you get burned just like you would in the real NBA

I dont care what lies people tell, this game is onto something with a good balance, and thats just the truth.

[23]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

BTW, great writeup

I would absolutely love to help design a defensive guide with some of you fellas if its wanted/needed

[sportyguyfl31]

very very good. Also, the right stick acts as a defensive crouch if I am not mistaken. but doesnt seem to be necessary. I find the player I am squaring up with seems to stay in that defensive position on his own? or am i just imagining that?

[sportyguyfl31]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

BTW, great writeup

I would absolutely love to help design a defensive guide with some of you fellas if its wanted/needed

I was thinking of putting together some EA Sportsworld clips of some onball defensive sequences vs the CPU.

[23]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

I wish they would allow more than just five videos at a time

I dont have recording equipment like some of these fellas do.

Maybe Da_Czar will do something but I wouldnt put all that on him

He touched on alot of the same things we were already saying which is a good thing.

EA should've advertised and talked about alot of things in this game but they didnt. Its great though that you have to learn how to be a defender to succeed.

All I know is you cannot run in circles and around the court and score 50 with one player in Live 09

[Bumble14]

Thanks for the feedback guys- keep adding any helpful hints. I'm hoping that by writing this article I can get the word out that Live is not "glitched" or "broken" on defense, it is just very deep and takes practice to master.

This being my first Live game since 99, I am EXTREMELY impressed with how it plays, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Once I figured out the basics via the academy and got the 2K out of my system, I was loving playing D on this game.

This game as a whole deserves a good look if you are a hardcore hoops gamer- especially if, like me, feel that the 2K series is feeling a bit stale.

[Chairman7w]

Fantastic article - thanks so much for your good work here. But I wish you had just emailed me these details privately, now everyone will know how to do this!

[edubbs]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Any tips on trying to defend in the post? Everytime I try to lock on to a offensive player down low, I end up sliding all over the place.

Playing post defense manually seems to be really broken in this game.

[Ballatician]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Didn't even know about the defensive assist button. Great article

[23]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Stop holding on to the face up button and using it as a crutch. Give yourself enough room to anticipate his shot but not enough where he can just drive right by you if he turns.

You can body him up then move back real quick (with good timing) to not give him the feel that you're just playing on side of his body

Also let the CPU do it sometimes and you come over as the help man. You wont always swat the shot but you do get your share of making him adjust his shot where he wont make em all.

[Pared]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Any tips on trying to defend in the post? Everytime I try to lock on to a offensive player down low, I end up sliding all over the place.

Playing post defense manually seems to be really broken in this game.

It's not broken, just pretty much non-existent outside of being able to body-up and stop a player from spinning in one direction in the post.

There are too many fundamental flaws in defense in this game. Defense in its current form is passable but there really needs to be work done in this area for next year.

It's not all bad but there's HUGE room for improvement, especially in the post.

[kwas676]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Heres a defensive tip...stop buying crap EA games...Get NBA 2k9!!

You know what man if you dont like the game why are you wasting your time here.

[23bluesman]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Yeah this is a great article, and if I didn't know any better I would've thought that KDRE wrote this, lol.

Anyway, it's good to see that a lot of people are seeing how good the defense is in this game. Not great, because it needs improvement in some areas (as everything in video game basketball does), but pretty darn good.

[Court_vision]

Re: Five Defensive Tips for NBA Live 09

Great post.