lAllstar is still a decent difficulty to play at, I don't know how some of you are enjoying superstar. The AI is absolutely cheating at all levels and there is zero fun in it. You can barely break/shake the defender even with star players regardless of how good your iso skills are, they make perfect passes in every single situation and always make the right pass/play/score at any given moment. I just don't find it to be realistic, you literally have to play god-mode the entire game every game just to stay competitive, let alone win the match. At least on All-star its back and forth and more enjoyable.
In years past I could take AI on superstar and it felt far more authentic, but this feels like some of the early 2k iterations where computer on superstar was just a cheat code on both ends.
BTW for online play, points of emphasis:
Conservative defense
Limit Transition
Crash defensive glass
Protect the paint
(these just guarantee your team absolutely sits their *** at one end and doesn't do anything funky)
This works for me.. my bigs are usually always in position on pick and rolls and I can recover really quick when changing players.. whenever anyone tries to go heavy on the pick and roll I just move back with my big and shift back and forth between my two defenders (you have to constantly click back and forth between them and position them if you want to play it right, if you stick to one you'll get burned by the roll/pop man badly). If you strictly use your guard/wing to defense the pick, your big will automatically hedge high and the opposing big will slip past him and go down the middle or baseline unimpeded for a wide open dunk. Once you go over the pick with your guard or you run into the pick, switch to your big and put him back further, this way you're always behind the roller and you're already in position if he tries to throw it to the big. I'd much rather take my chances to contest a mid range jumper to the ball handler than give up dunk after dunk to the roller.
Read the screen coming, go over top of it/go under it against a bad shooter (Rondo etc.), force them to bad spots like the baseline where its more jammed up with teammates and there is less spacing, you can do that by bumping 'em as soon as you get around the pick.
I'll show you guys some videos later of how I bump Tyson Chandler off the spot on every roll, it worked to great success - he abused the PnR earlier in the game and tried going to it late in the game to win and on multiple possessions I just bumped into Chandler with Gobert and forced him forward instead of toward the rim. You have to get physical with the roller using your big. That being said, when I played the pick and roll strong, some guys have adjusted and chose to play heavy on the pick and pop with guys like Bargnani/Bosh etc, and that was difficult for me to deal with.. I had to put Booker in to be more mobile and sat Favors for long stretches and it worked out great because I could run to contest their stretch bigs much faster on the pop. This feels like real life to me, if I adjust and play the Pick and roll well, they adjusted and brought in stretch bigs, so its a chess match.
Also I still see a lot of guys jumping etc. Stop jumping, use up on the stick on defense and ever so slightly move your left stick into their body as they're shooting and keep shifting it with the direction they move - in the post I get a lot of guys to miss easy hooks just by using hands up - and same on their kickouts, only commit to the jump when you're absolutely sure you got the timing down and that you'll get the block (usually best time to jump is on help defense when you see them committing to the drive).
After you score, switch back quickly to your bigs and run their *** back up court, place them firmly in your painted area and switch back to your guards to defend. Do not, I repeat DO NOT try to full court press ever in this game, it is WAY too easy to turbo past your defender if you try this and I burn a lot of guys who try to full court press me with either their PG or their entire team.
This game requires a lot of adjustments, you actually need to do plenty of work defensively - you can't just sit with one player and do nothing.
Also, Subbing in the right bench guys at the right time can actually work wonders. Trevor Booker has literally turned entire games around for me by hitting a big 3 coming off a screen, or grabbing huge rebounds and put backs around the rim; same with Rodney Hood, he's always in good position for my guys, sits in the corners and on the wings and waits for me to make plays and just hits jumper after jumper. He'll even fly in for the occasional big rebound or block when I need it most.
Even when guys have tried to cheese me I'm always able to switch quickly and recover inside to contest shots and block them, so unlike years past a lot of these issues can be dealt with easily on defense.
I'm 20-2 online and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Yeah, some games guys try **** and it usually works first half and it's a close game. By second half I just adjust with the personnel but also with how I play their exploits and I'm able to take a commanding lead. They try to go heavy on base line? Shade them away from the base line and force them to turbo back center, take your hand off L2 and R2 back to the mid and then switch back to L2 again.. keep bumping into them using L2.. get nice and close so they can't get off a string of moves and blow by you. You have to know when to back off a little bit and then when to get close, this constant bumping is a pain in the *** for the opposing guy, he'll get frustrated when he can't blow by you and try to force a tough 3 with another player. You'll notice AI do this to you and it stops your guy from getting into a string of animations.
A lot of times if they do try to go heavy on sideline/baseline against me and blow by, I quickly run over with Gobert and cut it off or block the shot.. so you gotta make the switch really quick just like real life and get in there and make it hard on them. A lot of guys just see the person blow by on the sideline / baseline and try to chase him with the same wing player that was playing defense.... not sure why... just switch to the bigs asap.
I've also had plenty of games where guys play fair, and even when both of us try a quick pass up wing, both defenses are back already because of those POE's I talked about, so getting transition points was actually extremely hard.
Anyway, just trying to translate some of the things I've found to be successful over to the guys who are finding online to be a hassle. I'm absolutely loving it and won't stop playing it. You can stop so many of the exploits and they aren't nearly as bad as you think they are.
My record and margin of victory (before latest win):