Team Strategy In-Game & Playbooks

[ChiFan23]

I'm having a difficult time finding the answer to a question I have in regards to the Team Strategy In-Game menu. Once in a game, I can "Pause", access "Settings", "Playbook", and then the "Team Strategy" sub-menu.

I've noticed that if I change the Defensive Setting from "Two Guard Rotation" to "Crash Boards", my PF/C tend to grab more rebounds.

So what exactly am I experiencing? What exactly is "Two Guard Rotation", "One Guard Rotation", and "Crash Boards"? How do they effect my game and where can I change this setting, if possible, out of game so that it's automatically set to "Crash Boards" instead of "Two Guard"?

Also, I noticed in the Teams.DBF file that PRIM_OFF column has different numbers but OPMAIN column has "0" for every team. Does the OPMAIN field indicate which offense my defense will face at the start of each game?

What about PRIM_DEF column? Anybody know where that column would be located? Every opponent I face starts out playing "Half Court Man" and I noticed that the DPMAIN column has "0" for every team so I figured that maybe that was the cause of seeing HCM at the start of every game.

I've also noticed that I rarely ever face a zone defense which is very likely attributed to not really running a true offense because of several factors:

A) I have still not found anything that shows a visual of how to run my plays, and I noticed that my team is automatically setup with "Shooter A" as our primary offensive play.

B) Because I do not know how to run a true offense, I tend to run I guess what is the "Run-N-Gun", a "Patient", "Drive-&-Kick", "Back Down & Out", or "Paint Dominance". By RnG, I mean I get a turnover or a rebound and quickly pass out to a streaking Ben Gordon or Luol Deng whom are usually in position for an easy running layup. By "Patient", I mean I just keep working the ball around until I find an open Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, or even Kirk Hinrich. By "Drive-&-Kick", I mean Kirk or whoever is at PG will drive to the basket drawing the defender off an open Luol Deng/Ben Gordon at the perimeter before kicking it back out to Deng/Gordon for an open shot. By "Back Down & Out", I use someone that is a threat to score in the paint (Thomas, Gooden, or Frye) before kicking the ball back out to the perimeter for an open shot ... so long as the defender leaves his man. By "Paint Dominance", I mean someone like Thomas, Gooden, or Frye is just flat out dominating in the paint so I continue to work the ball inside to them so they can back down and perform an easy layup or a facial dunk.

I figure because I am not calling set plays, that maybe that is why I am facing a lot of man defense. Could that be a reason? If so, I'd like to learn how to run the plays. I do call them once in a while, such as the Pick&Roll and Pick&Pop (easy plays to understand) as well as Isolation. To me, Iso allows me to let Gordon drive to the hoop almost unimpeded because the defense is usually playing man so it draws the defense to the outside. I'm not sure if Iso is designed that way but it works that way, though it's definitely not a guaranteed score.

Back to not seeing Zone as much, I do know that there is a column for the tendency to play Zone in Teams.DBF but the numbers are a little difficult to understand. For example, playing as the Chicago Bulls, I notice that the Detroit Pistons has "0" for ZONEUSE and "40" for VSZONEUSE. The Teams.DBF indicates that ZONEUSE is "how frequently a team plays zone defense" and that VSZONEUSE is "another zone attribute". I'm guessing that noone has figured out that attribute yet. Am I correct in assuming that the lower the number the less likely we'll see that team apply zone defense? So in this case, the "0" means it is very unlikely, if ever, that we'll see Detroit utilize "Zone", correct? The higher the number indicates a high chance of running "zone", such as Minnesota having a "99" for ZONEUSE and "40" for VSZONEUSE.

[ChiFan23]

Oops, I also meant to ask this question because it was not discussed clearly for me.

Under Plays.DBF, I see the following:

DELETED
ID
PLAYSET
STRINGID
PLAY
FRAME
TYPE
CX
CY
CR
PFX
PFY
PFR
SFX
SFY
SFR
SGX
SGY
SGR
PGX
PGY
PGR
P1
P2
P3

DELETED must be similiar to that of DELETED in other tables. No question there.

ID must be the Plays ID

PLAYSET has multiple entries, such as "BC Endline O/B"

STRINGID refers to what?

PLAY refers to what?

TYPE refers to what?

The columns that end in X, Y, and R with what appears to be the POS in front, such as C, PF, SF, SG, & PG. I figure that indicates the "X-axis", the "Y-axis" and whatever the "R" pertains to. I thought maybe "R" is the same as "Z" but then why not have a "Z-axis". Anyways, I've determined that despite having multiple entries, these three columns for each position actually indicate the exact points where the player starts "X & Y" points and the route that player takes (R).

P1, P2, and P3 must refer to the the order of shooters, such as:

ID "0", PLAYSET "BC Endline O/B", STRINGID "0" with:
C: XYR = 10,0,3
PF: XYR = 5,15,3
SF: XYR = 3,-18,3
SG: XYR = -28,22,3
PG: XYR = -41,10,3

P1 = SG
P2 = PG
P3 = PF

I'm assuming that the SG is the primary shooter, the PG is the secondary shooter, and the PF is the tertiary shooter?

Am I correct? Reason I am asking is because when assigning plays to specific teams beyond the first year, such as say years from now when rosters look really different, it would be good to go through and really evaluate the make-up of each team and assign playbooks based on their roster setups. For example, let's say LeBron leaves Cleveland for New York ... he's now their star player and they have a distributor at PG instead of someone like Stephon Marbury. Well, their current offense is run around their Guards which doesn't suit James' style and therefore his contribution won't be that great.

[ChiFan23]

Guys, I'm sorry. I don't know why I was thinking I was playing NBA Live 2008. I'm playing NBA Live 2007. Can we get this thread moved to the correct forum? Thank you.