Did you ever play NBA 2K14 with UBR, URB or some other Roster mod that brings you back to the 80's and 90's and thought to yourself: ''Wow, this is amazing, but it feels like something is missing''
Indeed, even if the players, jersey's, arenas and even the scoreboard feel like they're from the appropriate era, a key feature is missing, the rule that defined how teams would play offense and defense, the illegal defense rule
You probably noticed that the deffenders keep backing off of poor shooters, without switching to guard someone else, or that off ball deffenders keep moving to the freethrow line
to stop anyone from penetrating to the rim, or even playing zone defense, that can really kill the immersion that you're playing in the 80's and 90's
Ofcourse, we can't really make a mod that enables the illegal defense rule, but what we can do, is emulate it
with that in mind, if you start up a game, before the match starts, you can go into Coaching>Defensive settings, and from there, you can change the way your players will behave on the court
You need to change 3 things in the settings:
1. Dbl team *EDIT* :
Set for PG,SG,SF : On drive
Set for PF,C : Auto
That way, you can emulate how a guard would feel if he went up for a layup, he would get 2 or 3 defenders on him quicker than Kobe in the last 5 seconds of the game,
and PF and Centers won't get double teamed by the other big while in the post immediately, which would have led to a Center passing to a wide open PF out of a double team for an easy dunk, you still can get double teamed as a center, if you keep using him and he gets hot, although the AI shouldn't make the mistake of sending a Powerforward to double team, instead someone else should come
2. On ball - set for every player: tight
This is self explanatory, if you didn't guard your man in the 80's or 90's, and didn't guard anyone off ball, after 3 seconds you would get called for Illegal defense, so you will want to stay within arms reach of your on ball opponent almost at all times
3. Off ball - set for every player: tight/deny ball
This is the bread and butter of these settings, with your AI teammates being set to deny the ball for their opponents, they will emulate the defense of the era, and whenever
someone comes to drive, one or more of them will run to the paint to stop that man at all cost
Once you've set these settings for all of your players, you can go to settings and switch teams (Some might not like the fact that their stats won't be saved, but you can screenshot the end of the game, so I think it's not as important) once you've switched teams, do the same for your opponent, so that they can emulate following the illegal defense rule
Screenshots, if someone didn't understand the instructions by any chance:
https://imgur.com/a/cl6yVcR
Now, this is just a work in progress, I've been playing several games with different settings, and I found out that the best results come when I set it up this way
Off ball:
- for guards : Deny ball
- for small forwards/power forwards that can shoot: Deny ball
- for SF,PF,C- Tight
That way, centers and power forwards won't get stuck in the post up animation and will be quicker to double team anyone penetrating to the rim for a layup, although there is a higher risk that they will start playing zone randomly with Tight settings, where as in Deny ball, they will never just randomly walk away from their man, but there is a higher risk that they'll get stuck in the postup animation, so it's really up to you, but for me personally, tight works well
I would really appreciate feedback from anyone that is willing to test out these settings, I personally use my own Slider settings that work with these settings, which allow me to get realistic stats for 12 minute quarters
I wasn't thinking about making this when I figured it out, but once I decided to make this topic, I made a point to Screenshot the end game of some matches for you guys to check out, if you are interested:
Minesota Timberwolves vs Boston Celtics (1999) (94 : 81) - https://imgur.com/a/6XgUMjA
Chicago Bulls vs New York Knicks (1996) (98 : 84) - https://imgur.com/a/NRfQpCq
Los Angeles Lakers vs Houston Rockets (1999) (105 : 85) - https://imgur.com/a/ELlk5Cs
Some thoughts on the games
with Minesota, I think the reason I was able to break away in the 2nd half was because of our Defense, I focused on shutting down Pierce hard, throughout the whole game
and it worked perfectly, he only scored 3 points, we forced him into very bad shots over several hands and I think that's what tipped the odds in my favour as I took the lead in the 3rd quarter and kept rising it steadily.
With the Bulls, the scoreboard might indicate that it was a blowout, but I can tell you, keeping the lead after the first quarter was very hard, I managed to turn Ewing into a ghost in the 1st and 2nd quarter, but he exploded like a bomb in the 3rd and 4th quarter, in the end I was able to slow him down by putting Rodman on him, but then Oakley started getting hot, all in all, it was an intense game, even though I was up the whole time, I certainly felt the momentum shifting into their favour
With the Lakers, I'm not sure why I even took them, It was going to be a win from the moment I decided to use them, mainly because my playstyle works well in sync with Kobe and Shaq dynamic, the game was never close, even when I subbed out Kobe and Shaq, Fisher, Horry and Fox were able to fill in the gaps to keep the lead in double digits as the AI desperately kept Pippen, Barkley and Hakeem in the game, trying to bring themselves back from the hole, and once they got tired and subbed out, Kobe and Shaq were rested and then it was just a massacre, this time, experience couldn't keep up with young talent
One last thing that I would like to mention is: If you're going to use this to emulate how it felt to play in those eras, please put yourself in the shoes of coaches of that time, for them, the 3pt shot was inconsistent and risky, the drive to the rim was the easiest way to score but also the one that would leave players with bruises, and the mid range was a compromise, so keep that in mind, I would suggest tuning down the fouls frequency in game sliders, because even on default, the ammount of fouls that get called is ridicilous, and more than half of those wouldn't be called during that time, also keep in mind that if you play like the Steve Nash led Suns and run and gun, you won't be able to expect a realistic stat line