It's not even the animations, but the tuning and speed of those animations along with just poorly tuned player physics and a clunky momentum system. Couple that with the poor passing system and congested court spacing, the game is going to lack fluidity and freedom. The dribbling system is a good start, albeit one that was taken from other games, but being tuned around the current physics system give it a sense of unresponsiveness as well, especially when going from an iso move to trying to beat your man off the dribble. Most of the times resulting in that awkward step/gather motion before gaining any real speed or burst and once you reach a full speed, it is incredibly difficult to make any quick lateral moves. Again everything feels very methodical.
Live's problem is the exact opposite. They have had the issue of animation speeds varying from movement to movement. Players exploding to the rim from a dead stop, or dribbling animations all of a sudden being drastically slower because of ratings.
From a aesthetic standpoint, 2k's animations have always been on point. Their motion capture game is serious. It's about tuning those animations to make them more functional in game situations. You can have the most beautiful passing animations in the world, but if the ball is taking 3 seconds to get there and another 2 to catch and gather, then what is the point?