I love the pace and gameflow with this set. Seeing more fastbreaks, though unfortunately we know with 2K11 that fastbreaks weren't properly noted in the final game statistics. I also love the animations. Occasionally I see something stupid with regard to the blocked shot animation, but I guess it's something we have to live with (if I set blocked shots to 90 - I just don't see hardly any at all).
Like you said, I'm trying to find the balance between getting a challenge, but not feeling cheated at the same time. Lowering the cpu consistency slider to 20 seems to be the sweet spot. Even at 25 they NEVER miss wide open shots. At 20, they make most of them, but not all of them. That seems realistic to me.
I played with my 1999-2000 roster set (a favorite of mine that portlandblazer created). Boston (me) at Chicago (cpu). I won 96-94. 10 minute quarters. With 6.4 left in a tie game, I got a side out of bounds. Pass went to Kenny Anderson who then had a nice lob pass to the wing for a Paul Pierce game winning shot with only 0.3 left on the clock. I had a 6 point lead late, but I made some stupd plays and Chicago hit back to back 3's to tie it. Pierce had 25 points for me. I liked that Danny Fortson had 10 points and 7 rebs in 13 minutes off the bench for me (4 offensive boards in true Fortson form).
When I checked the boxscore from that season, the Bulls sucked and won only 17 games that season. If I recall, they beat Boston for TWO of their wins that year.
Here are a couple real boxscores from that season - two of Chicago's wins over Boston:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...911130CHI.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...001080CHI.html