I’m calling this post play suction, but really it has next to nothing to do with post play. The situation I’m describing usually involves the high post big who is more using the post-up button (L2/LT) to protect the ball as a play is run around him. The issue is the off-ball defender (who is generally an AI player) will always go and suction into the post-up player rather than tracking his own man off the ball if he comes near the post-up player.

 

 

It seems harmless at a glance, and both versions of the GIF I’m using here show it to be mostly harmless. However, this situation is annoying to deal with because the off-ball AI defender will always go and play post-up defense as he runs through the play when he has no business doing it. 

 

What’s worse, as a user, it makes me feel dirty if the AI defender gets stuck on me if I’m using the post player. Much of the time, you can exploit this suction to get a wing an open shot, but it’s not my intent to cheat the system. I hold the post-up button while in the high post to protect the ball from the on-ball defender, I don’t use it to get an unfair advantage.

 

Either way, it shows that handoff plays could be more interesting in future versions of NBA 2K, but right now the best hand-off plays are not even hand-off plays due to this animation issue. 

 

I think this particular issue was introduced during one of the patches. I could be wrong here, but I think there was a complaint about the ball not being loose enough, and so one of the patches made it so the ball handler would lose the ball in more situations. In theory, this makes sense. In practice, it has it’s ups and downs. 

 

Why I don’t like the turnover in the GIF above is that it really just punishes the ball handler for bad defense. Isaiah Thomas gets hung up on the pick and allows Teague to get into a dangerous position. From there, Teague should have all the advantages in the world as he’s playing four on five. Instead what happens is Thomas speeds back into the play and just runs into the back/side of Teague and the ball comes loose. The steal button is not pressed in this situation, and really all that happened was that Thomas hip checked the ball loose.    

 

That being said, I will point out that I have way less of an issue with this particular situation:

 

 

In a way, it’s the same issue because the defender didn’t press the steal button or anything here, but in this case the ball handler is at fault for dribbling the ball back into the body of the waiting defender. Defensive positioning is a massive part of playing good defense, and if you are actively cutting off a ball handler from getting back to the middle of the floor, the ball handler should be punished for not reading the situation at hand. 

 

People complain a lot about transition defense, and as I’ve said before, I agree that there are a lot of issues with transition defense in this game. Nevertheless, it’s still very easy at times to blow up 3-on-2 fast breaks and 3-on-1 fast breaks by simply staying close to the rim and sliding under players at the last moment. 

 

In this case, Zeke Isaiah Thomas sprints under Bazemore when he’s in the air. Even though Thomas does not press the jump or steal button, he is still rewarded with a contested layup animation. More than that, you can’t sprint under someone who is in the air because, well, that’s a foul. 

 

NBA 2K does want to reward you at times for playing positional defense, which is commendable, but sliding under players at the last second or simply parking yourself under the rim on a break should not allow you to stop transition buckets. 

 

 

Okay, so those are three of the two-man interactions I despise in NBA 2K16, you got any?