Why Can't I Connect for Direct IP Games?

My NBA Live never connects when I try to play against a friend....Whether I host or he does, all the game does is say it's searching, but it never goes through...Some help?

Are you behind a firewall? That might be causing the problem, who knows.

Yeah, I have a firewall...

This happened to me too. If you have Verizon DSL or another DSL provider, they sometimes give you roaming IP addresses in which case your IP address is not stable and thus cannot connect permanently. Try going to Start > Settings >Network Connections and connect manually. If you have problems doing this, call your DSL provider. They told me the DSL modem is treated by Win XP as a router and you have to disable this. Your friend has to do this as well if he's on DSL too.

Another Direct IP question...whenever my friend and I play, the connection drops when there's a replay...since I don't host the game I'm not sure if we can turn replays off. Anybody know the reason this happens or if there's a way to get rid of this annoyance so we can play at least a full quarter?