The most important thing in this game is learning defense. In the perimeter, just move to block your opponents drive, dont try to steal or anything else, just focus ondont let him drive in, by just moving the joystick. Use your body to drive him to the side.
You can use Strong deffense (L2) only if your opponent is cornered or if you are stronger and can push him. If not, he will go out of your strong deffense and drive in. That's why it's a matter of joystick first, just positioning yourself, and use L2 when things get crowded and there is a lot of contact.
If their perimeter guys go for the pick and roll or play A lot of screens, you have to anticipate and decide if you will go over or under the screen, depending on your opponent. If he's a great shooter, you wont like to go behind the screen, etc...
When the opponent start the shooting animation, dont go for the block, only block if you are quite certain you can do it, 90% of the time your goal is to make them do bad shots, not block them. So, just press and hold L2 and move towards him. This will difficult htheir shots inmensely. And make them miss is the key of this game. Dont get nervous, just hold L2 while they are shooting and you will make contact and reduce their accuracy, even in very close shots.
And 2 more key things, which are extremely important. First of all, activate the "always close down shots" or something like ,this in the control setup. You can revert it later when you have mastered deffense. This makes your teammates automatically "press L2" and difficult their shots even if you are not controlling them. It makes a big impact on deffense.
The other thing is to always set up your deffensive settings. Deciding if you sag off a player or play tight it's key. For instance you dont want to play tight someone who is faster or more agile than you. You have to concede a bit of space to anticipate his movements. I always put MODERATE pressure on-ball for quick guards, and only play tight the forwards who arent that quick and are good shooters. You can SAG OFF players like Deandre Jordan or bad shooters, but not Bargagni, for example.
It takes a while to get used to all this, but when you do, then the game changes completely and gets easier than previous versions.
In offense, just be creative. Do a mix of plays and pick and rolls, do in and out plays if you have great shooters out, attack the paint with oick and rolls if you have a team like Memphis, and master some killer Iso moves with your stars. For example, I have mastered 3 or 4 ways that make Melo win space to shoot. Extremely handy when you are in a bad run and need to score in the last quarter.
Finally, the, usual advices: dont run with a slow team, break a bad streak with time outs, if a player heats keep pounding with him, attack the paint if you have bigger guys, specially with post moves, learn to quickly detect mismatches in both ends of the pitch...
But the most importsnt thing is learning how to defend the perimeter and the drives to the paint.
Oh, I was forgetting rebounding... Once the opponent shot is being done, quickly release L2 if you werepressing it AND HOLD IT AGAIN while moving towards the ball. This will make your teammates box out the deffensive rebound. This is very important because controlling rebounds and the paint is key.
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f*ck you 2k ai!