NBA 2K9 Team Up Strategy - Operation Sports

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NBA 2K9 Team Up Strategy

Submitted on: 10/22/2008 by Richard Chavez

If you've played Team Up mode in NBA 2K9 like I have, you’ll see that it can be an awesome experience. If you haven’t because of the online issues in the game, feel free to complain about them until the problems are fixed. If you can play five-on-five right now or plan to when it works, then here are some tips that should make you an ideal teammate on the virtual court.

Know Your Role

So you’re Antonio McDyess, why are you grabbing the inbounds pass and running the ball up the floor? Nobody on your team wants to see that and it’ll make your teammates less likely to pass the ball to you in the long run. Your opponents want your virtual McDyess running and shooting as much as possible but that won’t help your team or your 2K Rating.

Rebounding and shooting are things you can attempt to do with any player, but obviously some players are better at shooting threes than others. Whatever player you’re given, try to make sure you know his strengths and weaknesses. There are plenty of forwards who can knock down a shot, but there are a bunch who can’t. If you know the difference between Darius Miles and Martell Webster you should be all right.

Communication

Keep your microphone on as much as you can. You have no idea how much easier a frustrating game can be if you can speak to your teammates. Is Steve Nash being a ball-hog? Let him know then. Is Mehmet Okur sagging on defense? Let him know then. Are you really hungry? That doesn’t sound like a problem your point guard can fix, but it’s worth a shot, so let him know.

You can also use the microphone for things other than complaints. Instead of calling for the ball 15 times while your player looks like he’s trying to work an airport runway, you can tell the ball-handler that you’re wide open under the basket. While everyone else is running down the court like headless chickens, you can calmly tell your point guard that you’re open for three and you’d like to take the shot.

Having a microphone can also help you on defense because you can get the proper help when a single man isn’t enough. Calling plays like the pick and roll are also made possible with communication. A team without communication is at a huge disadvantage against a team where everyone is talking.

Play To Win

In the NBA, it’s all about the little things you can do to ensure a victory. Setting picks, helping on defense, and hitting free throws make the difference between a close loss and a win. Everyone wants to be the star and everyone wants the most points, but realistically that can’t happen. You are unlikely to receive an all-star player every time you play. In other words, having a good time in Team Up mode in NBA 2K9 isn’t always about taking the most shots. It’s important for you as an NBA 2K9 player to know a little about the game and the people you’re playing against. If Joe Johnson is constantly driving to the right side of the basket you have to realize that so you can get in his way to take the charge or get another defender to put a body on him. You having a career night won't always be the key to victory, and you can still definitely be effective as a role player.

The way the system works, there will be nights you’ll be a role player and others you’ll be a superstar. The most important part of the game is being effective in both situations without hurting your team. Whether you have to yell for the ball when playing with a shoot-first point guard or you have to play help defense because you’re stuck using Chris Wilcox, Team Up mode in NBA 2K9 can be enjoyable either way.

Are you still having trouble playing online? Do you get mad when you’re stuck with a below-average player? Are you the guy shooting threes with Erick Dampier? Sound off in the comment box below!

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Member Comments

# 1 Ty @ 10/23/08 12:28 AM

These are some great tips! Thanks

# 2 kenn5373 @ 10/23/08 12:29 AM

This would be nice if the game didn't run at 10 fps.

# 3 bears5122 @ 10/23/08 02:20 AM

Good tips but I don't think many of us have been able to play. I think the feature is dead. Maybe next year though, it looks like a ton of fun.

# 4 NYCDaFuture @ 10/23/08 02:24 AM

U see I love this 5 on 5.. When it is lag free or the least playable. But these are the problems im having with this mode.

Im not even gonna talk about the lag bs cuz we all know that, and we all know about how long it takes to get a game.

Let me say wat they have to fix for this mode.

1st, change difficulty to halloffame.

2nd, this random team stuff with random ppl is trash.

Let me be able to pick my friends n play against others ranked. Let me be able to choose wat team I want.

For rank games, if they want to choose my posistion for me then fine. But let me at least be able to choose wat I want to be. Is it that hard??

Let there be clans like nba live. All of this will make team up so much better. This game potentially can be the best but lacks in a lot of things.

O n im soon to be number one on the 360 in this mode with an A+ average.

NYCDaFuture for 360. Ill b number 1 or top 3 most likely this weekend Ya Dig

# 5 PlatinumJuice @ 10/23/08 10:42 AM

There should be more then a couple of teams that play... it should be implemented into a league type thing... where you can team up instead of just a bunch of randos everytime. Hopefully next year they'll do something with it that doesn't involved 10 minutes of lagging and an eventual 2 v 3

# 6 DC @ 10/23/08 10:49 AM

People not always giving the PG the ball to initiate the offense is my only gripe. I played a team up game and I was the Suns and was controlling Nash. I guess Amare and Raja Bell knew eachother because Raja got just about every inbound pass to start the offense. I am like why.........

# 7 walliworld @ 10/23/08 06:51 PM

Using Microphone and playing your role is key... Why Yao Ming or Amare have to bring the ball up court is mind-boggling?? Pass the ball and get good shot selection.

# 8 GSW @ 10/23/08 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCAllAmerican


	People not always giving the PG the ball to initiate the offense is my only gripe. I played a team up game and I was the Suns and was controlling Nash. I guess Amare and Raja Bell knew eachother because Raja got just about every inbound pass to start the offense. I am like why.........

their "Teammate" rating should go down for that

# 9 siremike @ 10/23/08 08:51 PM

i think that 5on5 could be the best thing on this game. like mentioned above we do need to have clans or something because it is hard to see shaq come up with the ball or to see ming wide open in the middle but people are trying to shake 3 people just to get blocked.

# 10 nickelplaydit @ 10/27/08 01:58 PM

man! on the 360 the mic problem is rampant. it slows things down for right now. hard to turn it on. hopefully that gets fixed.

# 11 ram124 @ 10/27/08 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walliworld


	Using Microphone and playing your role is key... Why Yao Ming or Amare have to bring the ball up court is mind-boggling?? Pass the ball and get good shot selection.

I played a game last night as the Cavs. Whoever was controlling Zyldrunas kept getting the inbound and running up the floor. Then trying to take the defense 1 on 4 to the basket. Somehow he ended up with a B rating??

# 12 Lid @ 10/27/08 02:52 PM

team up is cool, but i dont get why people dont use their mics, and dont play team ball. the PG is the most important dude in team up too. if the person running PG drops, thats almost a gauranteed loss

# 13 TMagic @ 10/27/08 02:53 PM

This would be great if people actually followed this. As it stands now, every Team Up game I play goes like this:

Offense consists of:
-Ball gets inbounded, PG turbos all the way up the court, passes to big man under basket. Big man makes shot.

-Other team inbounds the ball to PG, who turbos all the way up the court and passes to big man standing under basket. Big man makes shot.

-One guy who takes jumper after jumper with no matter who they have or if they're covered.

Defense consists of:

- EVERYBODY GOING AFTER WHOEVER HAS THE BALL

Good times. Good times.

# 14 GSW @ 10/27/08 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMagic


	This would be great if people actually followed this. As it stands now, every Team Up game I play goes like this: Offense consists of: -Ball gets inbounded, PG turbos all the way up the court, passes to big man under basket. Big man makes shot. -Other team inbounds the ball to PG, who turbos all the way up the court and passes to big man standing under basket. Big man makes shot. -One guy who takes jumper after jumper with no matter who they have or if they're covered. Defense consists of: - EVERYBODY GOING AFTER WHOEVER HAS THE BALL Good times. Good times.

LOL.

Thats awful

# 15 Stumbleweed @ 10/27/08 03:38 PM

I've had some great games in this mode. Sometimes it devolves into a fastbreak game where people are cherry-picking with big men and it's dunkdunkdunkdunk... But in general, playing in the player match area has yielded the best results, because it's generally groups of friends who are in there, so they know eachother and actually know how to play the game. Plus, getting to pick your position kind of helps with the quality of game, because someone with no PG skills getting assigned to Deron Williams will ruin a game quick, even if they're playing somewhat realistically.

So yeah, my general tips:

1. Play Player Matches -- do a custom game search and it'll take you to the lobbies. Pick a game with 4-6 spots remaining and hope that the host will start it up with less than 10 people, because they're still having major issues with full games. 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 seems to work pretty well.

2. Make sure you talk to at least one of your teammates and establish some sort of trust. In many games, it's only 1 or 2 users with a mic anyway, so you can often kill the other team with a solid 2-man game even if your other teammates are idiots or (since they don't have a mic) can't truly participate in strategy, etc. Basic stuff like setting picks for the PG on a regular basis will open up the offense a ton and will show your teammate that you're not an idiot and that you will try to get him looks if he returns the favor.

3. Stick to your man, but if you constantly see someone bagging off and leaving their man open, communicate to the other team members that you will be covering them and that you may occasionally lose your assigned man so they can try to help. The icons underneath your player are very useful -- the arrows underneath show where your assigned man is, and you can see a colored ring around the offensive player's ring showing who on your team is supposed to cover them. In my last 5 on 5 game, Antoine Walker (yeah, I know right?) absolutely lit us up from deep because whoever was controlling Rashard Lewis had no mic and basically wasn't playing any defense at all. I tried covering both him and Gay (my man), but because there wasn't good communication for help defense, Gay started getting open and finished as the POTG even though I had basically shut him down early. You'll get games like this were someone totally abandons their post on defense.. it's frustrating, but there's nothing you can do aside from trying to find better people to play with..

Big man tips:

Bodying up in the post is done by holding LT, but you can also use the RS to try to front the post player or reach your arm around to steal the entry pass. You can use the RS independently also, but I find that it's usually best to engage them with LT, because trying to do it with RS causes your payer to go for a steal (or the other RS defensive moves) unless they're in exactly the right position.

So lock them up with LT and then you have to decide if it's more important to try to deny the ball/get a steal or to play position ball and simply stay between your man and the basket. In general, I recommend keeping yourself between the man and the basket, because the passing in this game is kinda crazy and most of the time, they'll make that pass even with you fronting or reaching in -- and then it's an automatic dunk. You can however steal the entry pass after it's already been made by tapping X right as they receive the pass or when they turn to go into their move.

On the offensive end, you can really clear some space for yourself and your wing players to operate by engaging the defender face-to-face and then pushing him out of the paint. You can clear your man out of the paint totally, which allows your guards to have a clear lane if they beat their man -- you can also push your man out of the paint and then RT + LS towards basket to push off them and go back to the hoop. You can also engage the post (back to basket) and then tap RT to give an aggressive back-down -- you'll get called for a foul sometimes, but it seems to work pretty well, especially with big strong post players like Al Jefferson. Also, when engaged in the post, you can spin off your man and go to the hoop by pressing RT + LS towards hoop -- this is very useful as well.

Wing Player/PG Tips:

The biggest thing here is trying to play solid perimeter defense, as 95% of the people you play online will try to iso you to death or simply run around off-ball like a headless chicken trying to shake you for an open look. The headless chicken strategy is pretty hard to stop simply because you're constantly in reaction mode, hoping you can keep up with them -- but really, you just need to make sure that you're fairly close to the player and that you don't jump as soon as they receive the ball (because you'll get way out of position). Be very patient on defending jumpers, as most people online look for the drive (or drive and kick) rather than the jumper, and you don't want to give up a lane.

LT works for perimeter players also, but the offensive player needs to be basically standing still in order for you to engage them (something that I hope 2K improves). You can also deny them the ball with RS, and I think it actually works much better on the perimeter than the post because you tend to get passing lane steals more often than steals in the post... simply getting a hand between the ball and your man will cause a bobble or an outright turnover a lot of the time. Pressing A will push your man, but I haven't really seen much use for it other than if you need to stop the game with a foul for some reason -- you normally just get an off-ball foul.

Getting open as a wing/PG off the ball is a lot of fun. Same as with the post, you can engage and then push off, juke with RT/LT, or just run around like a maniac. If you're stretegic, just pay attention to the court spacing and where the other wing players are (and any mismatches that may cope up) and try to space the floor. I find that crossing the ball works wonders -- so if the PG is running from the left wing to the right wing area, I'd cut across the court so that I end up on the weakside (in this case, left wing), usually trying to set a quick pick for the ball-handler on the way.

Also, setting picks is huge -- you can set them off-ball as well as for the ball-handler, and they tend to be very effective because human players aren't nearly as good as coordinating their switches as the CPU is. If you designate one or two members of the team to be the primary pick-setters (i.e. Dampier and Josh Howard, one big and one wing), then you'll have clearly-defined roles and it will help the offense flow much more smoothly.

Oh, and only the PG can call plays. So if you're the PG, make sure that everyone is on-board with how the system works before tiring yourself out trying to orchestrate them. When you call the play, the spots show up on the floor for everyone -- they're color-coded, so if everyone gets to their spot, the play will start. It's fairly self-explanatory from there, given that everyone knows how to read the play diagrams offline.

# 16 NINJAK2 @ 10/28/08 02:28 AM

I just had two good team up games today. one game was 3 on 5 and the other was 5 on 5. The 3 on 5 ran really smooth and the 5 0n 5 didn't run as smooth buy it was highly playable for me for the 1st time with 10 humans. Man when u get the right collection of people playing that mode it can be really awesome. In the 5 on 5 game I was Rasheed and we were going against the pacers. We were down most of the game until we came from 8 down late in the 4th to force overtime. The guys using chauncey, mcdyess, tayshaun(player of the game) did most of the work as I just got boards, blocks, and assists. I ended up with an A rating and we were all communicating. If they could ever get it consistently smooth in team up 5 on 5...wow!!!

# 17 Jackmouv @ 04/14/09 10:35 PM

I can absolutely agree on to things, Team Up is one of the greatest innovations in Sports gaming in years, if not ever. And second, the servers SUCK.

Fortunately, I have three things that will greatly improve your experience with this great game mode:

First, you can greatly reduce the lag if ALL players leave their mics OFF until tip-off. This is something we need to start passing the word on, I have played in games where people have done this and it's so much better. It is totally fine and reccommended to turn them back on after the actual game starts.

Second, 5 on 5 is great, but you can have just as great an experience with 5 users vs. the CPU team. In alot of ways it's actually better. And the best part, it's virtually LAG FREE. Most of the lag is due to players being on both teams. Round up your 4 other players first and have them stand by while you create a Player Match, then jump in and start the game.

This brings me to the third thing. Join my Team Up league, The VBA (Virtual Basketball Association) at VirtualSportzCenter.com we are currently forming teams for a HOF Challenge where your team tried to beat all the other teams (CPU Controlled) on Hall Of Fame difficulty. This gives you a team that can play together, the right way. All stats are tracked for all games you win. See if you can beat all the NBA team playing as the same team. After the Challenge the captains kep their teams and all other players are free agents and we will have a Live Draft. Captains can use the HOF Stats to scout potention draft picks the build their teams. The hope is we get to play some good and meaningful games and by the time we beat all the team and hold the draft, the 5v5 lag will be addressed.

This is a PS3 only league and registration is open now. Hit me up on PS3 (Jackmouve) or check site for all the info. Pass the word and we can build a good base of players. Other helpfull thing the VBA offers is a show online called Court Vizion: Basketball 101 where we show you how to run plays and different team stragegies, plus good practice drills. We are also putting out a magazine - The Virtual Athlete (first issue in June) covering all things in the Virtual Sportz Center world.

I am also looking for people interested in being captains, PAC Reps (Players Association Committee), Sports Writers for the website and Magazine, and marketing reps helping bring in sponsors for league prizes. I pay for everything as I want this to be a free community for sports gamers, so it's volunteer only, for the love of gaming. Olny serious players and volunteers need inquirer. I'll post more info in the next post.

# 18 Jackmouv @ 04/14/09 10:38 PM

Calling All SIM Ballers ~ Start Your VBA Career Today!

The Virtual Basketball Association (VBA) is now recruiting players for the VBA 2K Team Up League and Teams for the Hall Of Fame Challenge... on Playstation 3

Players will join an HOF Challenge team and play 5 players verses the CPU, the goal is to beat each team on HOF Difficulty. All stats will be tracked and posted to the Virtual Sportz Center website. Challenge Captains will be VBA Team Up League Captains and will be evaluating players as they play the challenge games. Player evaluations will be posted in the form of Scouting Reports. Captains will use these scouting reports and the player stats to prepare for the VBA Draft that will be held in the VBA Club House on Playstation Home and broadcast Live on the Internet. Players that play and do well in the challenge will be rated higher than unknown players and the cream of that crop will become Lottery Picks.

The Live Draft will be open to all league players (Clubs only hold a limited number of players) with Lottery players having guaranteed seating, I you can't be at the draft in the club you can watch it Live on VSC-TV

To register and begin your VBA Career, decide what Position you are best at and that will be your Main position.

Free Agent Registration
Team Captain Registration (Must first be a registered Free Agent)

Players can play up or down one spot when needed. So a SG can play PG or SF if needed. But you will be locked in to that position, no matter what team you get drafted by. So if you are a SG and hoping to get Kobe but get drafted by the Cavs, you can play with Lebron. You ARE a SG, so pick a psoition, not a player.

After the challenge and before the Draft, their will be player workout games so that captains can evaluate play they are looking to try to draft. Also it should be noted that players are locked into a Minimum 30 Day cantract when they commit to join a team, that user and the player that they sigh as are LOCKED for the term of the contract (30 Day, Full Season, during the Regular Season you get 3 10 Day contracts to use where ever you need them)

More Information at Virtual Sportz Center

# 19 Pared @ 04/15/09 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jackmouv


	First, you can greatly reduce the lag if ALL players leave their mics OFF until tip-off. This is something we need to start passing the word on, I have played in games where people have done this and it's so much better. It is totally fine and reccommended to turn them back on after the actual game starts.

I would think creating a Party via XBL would easily alleviate this problem, no?

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