Game Crashes/Freezes During Gameplay (PC)

First off my specs are as follows:

Phenom II X3 720 BE @ 3.2GHz
4 GB DDR3 1333
GTX 260 Core 216 Stock
Soundblaster XiFi Fata1ity Titanium Pro
Vista 64-bit Home Premium

All of my drivers are up-to-date as of yesterday.

Basically I start a quick game or NBA Today game, and after maybe a quarter and a half at most, the game just freezes and I have to End the game through Task Manager.

Here's the kicker, if i try and restart the game, i get sound with no video. i can't play the game again until I restart my computer.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

By the way, this is the only game I have issues with.

I have similar spec with a less powerful card, ATI HD 3850, and although I face no freezing in-game, I experienced 'crash to deasktop' every single time I play the game. Initially I thought those crashes happen quite randomly, but I came to realised that I could not play games with or against the Nuggets, Hawks, Cavs, and a few others. For the nuggets I cant even get to the select the jersey screen. If anyone has a solution please voice it.

p.s. I've emailed take2 for tech support but they are too busy to reply it seems. and that's what you get for getting an original copy.