Jeremy Bennett has been a sports gamer nearly all of his life
starting with 10 Yard Fight in the arcades up to being actively
involved with nearly all of the EA Sports titles this year. He is the
owner and administrator for the Back Nine Blog, the blog dedicated to
Tiger gaming, and he is also a contributor for ncaaStrategies. He has
been involved directly with EA Sports for almost a year now with his
participation in the 2009 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 and NCAA Football 10
community days, along with being a moderator for the EA Sports Forums.
You can follow Jeremy on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/JBHuskers.
Welcome
Thanks for checking
out this installment of "The Crossover". My goal for The
Crossover is to provide my own tips and strategies for the NBA Live franchise.
If there is any topic you'd love for me to cover, please don't hesitate to let
me know by leaving a comment within this article.
Contrasting Styles
In a continuation of
last week's NBA blog, CDJ and I are going to battle in a top matchup from this
week involving the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns. After last week's loss, I decided to try
something new and it seemed to work.
This was a close game throughout with an insane buzzer beater at the
end.
Quarter 1 - LAL 10
PHO 10
CDJ's Take:
Once again, each of
us got out to a pretty slow start offensively. I'm not sure if it's
us forcing shots offensively or just a failure to get into a rhythm early. I
found myself really wanting to get into an up and down pace with the Suns, but
I've always had better luck establishing an offensive rhythm in the half-court
and then increasing the tempo, particularly off of turnovers. For
some reason, I feel like I am the only guy who can't hit three pointers at a
high percentage with Steve Nash. Online, players have that down to
an art form.
JBHuskers' Take:
Right out of the
gate, I decided to be impatient, but as opposed to last week, the shots I took
early were good shots, they just didn't fall.
That's going to happen sometimes.
You're going to be set up perfectly for multiple shots in a row, and
you'll get times where they just don't fall.
Part of my patience can easily be displayed at the 3:40 mark of the
video. I start to drive with Artest, and
realized the drive to the hoop was not there.
I backed the ball up, and found Bynum for a nice hook shot to get my
first FG of the game. The entire quarter
was well defended by both squads with some key turnovers and good help defense,
minus a little bit of a scoring run at the end of the quarter.
Quarter 2 - LAL 20 PHO
22
CDJ's Take:
The end of the first
quarter saw some action offensively, only for the first few minutes of the
second quarter to be a stalemate again. Midway through the quarter I was
finally able to get some shots to fall, mainly in transition. When I
had a 19-14 lead, I missed several baskets which would have really helped put
momentum on my side. Instead, JB was able to get some shots to start
falling and a 20-19 lead. At that point, a timeout was necessary to
help stem the tide. Not just in this quarter, but throughout the
entire game it felt like each team had a lot of bad passes either batted away
for turnovers or just picked off. Each team had chances to make big
runs, but neither could capitalize. The icing on the cake was the
blown dunk at the end of the half for the Suns.
JBHuskers' Take:
Even more than the
first quarter, there was a lot of pinball going on. I was able to start getting Kobe involved in
the game more at the start of this quarter which helped me gain some needed
momentum; however, a lot of my turnovers lead to made shots by CDJ (rather than
the other way around). This gave CDJ a
five point lead and prompted me to do something different. I switched defenses. If you remember in last week's game, I kept
the same defense almost all the way throughout.
The defense change lead me to a 6-0 quick run causing CDJ to call a
timeout.
Quarter 3 - LAL 28 PHO
32
CDJ's Take:
As highlighted at
the start of this quarter, I was never really able to get Grant Hill going on
jumpshots. Despite being open, his unique shooting style was very
tough to get the timing of. It seemed like I was able to get four to
six point leads throughout most of the game, but JB was able to close the gap
or keep me from putting the game away. Re-watching the game is
nauseating in some ways, as I can't believe the number of missed close-range
shots each team had as well as the number of tipped or stolen passes. However,
this was probably one of the better defensive games I have seen both users play
in a game of NBA Live 10. Each basket was well-earned.
JBHuskers' Take:
It was a rough start
to the second half as I turned the ball over quite a bit. I played some decent defense, but good shots
and a key offensive rebound enabled CDJ to build the biggest lead of the game
at eight. The turnover bug seemed to
jump over to CDJ's side as I was able to get some good fastbreak points and get
back into the game. Towards the end of
the second period I was able to change the focus of the team to crash the
boards, and it really paid off in the latter part of the third as I only let
CDJ have one shot on a few consecutive possessions. All-in-all CDJ seemed to bookend the advantage
the 3rd by hitting some late shots, with a small run by me in the
middle.
Quarter 4 - LAL 43 PHO
41 F
CDJ's Take:
Every game I play,
my goal is to enter the final period having learned from mistakes made
previously in the game and to 'win the fourth quarter.' This quarter
was perhaps the ugliest of the game for both teams. I'm sure JB
would agree with me that the final minute was probably a great example of what
NOT to do in a close game.
- With Phoenix up
five with 1:30 to go, LA hits a three and then gets a lay-up to tie the game.
- Suns miss a layup
with less than a minute to go. LA then commits foul on an inbound
pass to let Phoenix go up two. Bynum then scores underneath to tie
it up.
- With 18 seconds to
go, Phoenix misses another short-range shot, giving LA a chance to hit a
game-winning shot.
- Nash steals
inbound pass, takes (and misses) ill-advised lay-up attempt. I
should have held for the final shot or set up a play.
- Kobe is able to
get the shot off in time and LA wins the game.
It was a very fun
game, but in retrospect all of the bad passes and even the missed dunk before
halftime added up, leading to the wild finish and ultimately the loss for
Phoenix. If anyone wanted proof of how real this game can be, the
final shot is it. Ask almost anyone in the NBA and they'll tell you
that when it comes to buzzer-beaters, Kobe Bryant is the guy you want to take
the shot. The defense on the final play was pretty solid, but it
wasn't that play that cost me the game. It was great defense by LA
plus poor offensive efficiency on my part. Great game, JB and I look
forward to our next match-up!
JBHuskers' Take:
Nothing much to note
early in the fourth quarter, but make sure to watch the :56 mark for the greatest pass of the
game. Or not, there will be sometimes I
go for the steal, don't realize I have the ball and shoot a ¾ court shot, usually
ending up in my opponent getting the ball back.
This time to both of our amusement Fisher got the offensive board and
hit the easy 2-footer.
CDJ came out rather
cold this quarter; however, I really couldn't capitalize either. We may have been playing with carnival rims
this whole game, and we didn't know it.
Towards the middle of the fourth, CDJ's shooting woes continued, but
Kobe was able to get some good penetration to the hoop even though he was
facing a double team; however, the story of the fourth quarter was pretty much
the story of the game. No one was able
to get a gigantic run together, just baskets here and there thanks to the good
defense that was being played.
Down five with only
90 seconds left, I needed to kick things in gear for sure. Following CDJ's free throw, I was able to go
down the court and find Kobe sitting in the corner for a key three. The ensuing possession for CDJ resulted in a
turnover, and Fisher was able to beat the defense on the break to instantly tie
the game with about 70 seconds left.
During CDJ's timeout I decided to take the double team off of Stoudemire
(that I placed in the beginning of the second half, since CDJ prefers post play
rather than guard play usually) to balance out the defense in the stretch run. Additionally, I decided to take off the
crash boards rebounding strategy in favor of getting back.
For the ninth time
in this game, I decided to switch defenses out of the timeout (I will talk more
about this in the conclusion). For the
entire game, the defense did a great job of helping out and recovering, and
this point of the game was no exception.
Going into the final 15 seconds of the game, we were deadlocked at 41,
and I called a timeout just to get the team reset. The inbound pass was stolen, as I was trying
to get it directly to Kobe; however, I luckily had Fisher get back on D, and
contest the shot. With six seconds left
I call a time out to set up the final play shown in the video below:
The inbound goes to
Fisher this time (learning from my lesson on my last possession). He swings it over to Kobe and draws an
instant double team. When I passed it
right back to Fisher, I noticed three guys were on Fisher. Coming out of the timeout, CDJ must have had
Fisher and Kobe doubled, as they were the only legitimate threats at the end of
the game for the Lakers here. A quick
pass back to Kobe who is open results in the buzzer beater to win the game
43-41.
My Last Second Shot
The game wasn't
pretty, but I think one key item kept me in this game. I ended up switching defenses nine times in
this game, compared to two last week. My
defense seemed to be less predictable for CDJ this week, as he never really got
on a run. Unfortunately, I was also
unable to get on that same run either, which resulted in the game coming down
to the wire. Great game CDJ, look
forward to the rubber match next week on The Crossover!
Interested in becoming an EA SPORTS Game Changer? Check out http://bit.ly/bdfJEB for more information!