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8 top NBA 2K18 tips to help you beat the best
Producer Rob Jones tells us how to score, dribble, defend and steal in the brilliant new basketball game.
“NBA 2K has always prided itself on being the best simulation out there,” producer Rob Jones tells us. “We’re really stoked about what we’re doing this year.”
Simulation is the key word – anyone who has played an NBA 2K game will know that basketball is not as easy as it looks on telly. You can’t just press a button to simply steal the ball, run through the defence and then tap another button to score like you used to in old arcade basketball games. You need to pick the right moment to make a move on the player with the ball, see which of your team-mates are moving into space, pass and then time your shot perfectly.
What’s more, for NBA 2K18, the players are more intelligent than ever before, with the defenders adjusting their game according to your patterns of play. “The defence adjusting to the human is brilliant, because now you can’t cheat,” says Jones.
Thankfully, Jones has helped us out with some top tips that will help you dribble, score and steal like a pro. Here’s his guide to victory.
1. The easiest ways to increase your ranking in My Career’s Road to 99
I’m a play first guy – I wouldn’t venture to the Park. I would play the NBA games through the storyline. You can work against those guys better and you’re not going to run into people who may have already built their guy up and are not going to allow you to be successful.
The AI is more of an even playing ground for you – you might run into someone who’s been playing 2K for 10 years and they may know everything! Even though the game is changing it’s still basketball at its core and they know it better than the AI. The AI gives you a more level playing field.
Get intro the training. There’s a training facility right behind you – go in there and work on the things that you want to be good at, because that accelerates you being good at doing specific things. Those are the two quickest ways.
Practise in training to improve your player
© 2K Games
2. The best ways of keeping the scoreboard ticking over
I’m a guy who understands what I built myself to be and therefore I work within that. I like to win so I do whatever it takes to win.
I’m usually a point guard. I’m not normally the guy who scores 35 points a game, but I’m the guy that gets a lot of steals, I try to average double digits for assists, but that’s because that’s what I think a point guard is supposed to do.
If I were the post player, great defence and great post moves would be how I would build my guy first, because if I’m unstoppable at doing what I’m supposed to do, then I can build around that.
3. The best ways to score
The best way to work for the new shooting mechanic is to get yourself wide open, because if you’e wide open then your timing is not as critical as if you’re not, because you get more time to concentrate and knock your shot down, whereas if you’re going to shoot when you’re heavily contested you need to have perfect releases every single time just to have a chance.
When you watch people play, they discount how important it is to be smart about getting a shot in space. I have the space to pull off a really nice shot without being harried or pushed by a defender.
4. The best ways to find space
Usually, what I look for is guys who are either coming off screens or are coming through traffic, because usually traffic means that the defender might get stuck there. I anticipate space and that’s what I would tell people to do – anticipate the space, don’t react to it, because if you’re reacting to it, it’s too late. So you have to anticipate that a player is going to run into space and deliver him the ball.
The Neighbourhood is a big new social feature
© 2K Games
5. How to dribble efficiently
The first and foremost thing is that you have get your dribbling rating up. So work on dribbling drills as knocking the badges in dribbling will increase your chances of causing a guy to stumble and create better opportunities to score.
One of the things that I noticed people do when they dribble is that they’ll do their moves, but they don’t attack the space – they attack into congestion and then they’re like, ‘I lost the ball’.
It’s like, ‘you’ve got four people standing where you want to go after you beat the first guy!’
6. Match ups explained – how to defend and attack against certain types of player
Let’s say I was Pau Gasol and for some reason I got matched up with Russell Westbrook – the smart thing to do would be to drop off him and let him shoot. My length is going to give me enough of a chance to bother his vision, but if I stand too close to him, he’s guaranteed to beat me by dribbling around me and the AI understands that match up better than it ever has before.
We’ve had that match up before when if I was Pau Gasol [in a previous game], Russell wouldn’t say that’s ‘100% advantage me’, so he’d wait for a pass. Nowadays, he sees this match up and he’s trying to figure out how to score.
We always talk about understanding your speed and size advantage. If I’m a smaller player – let’s say I’m little Isaiah Thomas and I’m playing against Pau Gasol, what I don’t want is to allow him to get close to the basket, so I’m going to pressure him way more when he’s further away from the basket and dare him to put the ball on the ground, because that’s where my advantage is.
For the user, it has to be an understanding of who you are, what your physical abilities are and therefore decide what space you need to give to the guy in front of you.
7. How to steal effectively
We’ve always said that stealing is something that needs to be timed. There are moments in which the ball handler is more susceptible to steals. So right in the middle of a catch, if you can get your hand in and knock it out, that’s a bit easier. A lot of time, when they turn around in crowds they’re more vulnerable, so if there’s a guy turning inside and there’s three people around him, they’re more vulnerable in that moment.
Look out for whenever they’re getting bumped, too. If I played enough defence to get in the way of him and I bumped him physically, in that moment he’s a little more susceptible. So I steal in those moments, and obviously, try to time changes of hands, which is also an easy way to get broke – but if you time it correctly and get your hand on the ball, that’s when you get a good steal.
8. Two players to pick for Draft mode
Let’s say for example, everybody is going to want LeBron because he’s LeBron, but I think I can replace LeBron with a comparable player who’s not as fashionable. So I would take Anthony Davis, because he gives me so much as a player – he gives me defence, a ton of length, but if you take the two values they’re not comparable; Le Bron is going to be a lot more expensive. I’m getting 95% of the production without paying the premium. So, Anthony Davis would be a first choice.
I’m a huge Chris Paul fan. He is such a leader that I would pick him – defensively he’s better than 90% of the league.
NBA 2K18 is available now on PS4, Xbox One and Switch.
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