Address Paint Passing

One of the legacy issues that still persists in 2K is the ability to easily pass the ball into the painted area. I have to confess, I abused this in the era around NBA 2K10--that was the year gameplay made advancements so that you could no longer pass "through" defenders into the paint, but I still had a money play back that allowed it. It was easy, Thaddeus Young would flash to the elbow and receive the pass, then Iguodala would cut from the wing into the paint. If you were lucky he only got a layup. 2K overestimated Dre's paint finishing because he was a spectacular dunker back then. The instant I passed it to him it was a usually buckets--TRUST.



I know full well how much of an exploit Paint Passing can be and why we need to make passes past in-position defenders a rarity. Its one of the worst bail-outs the defense can allow. So what exactly is "paint passing" you're asking...SIMPLE. Its the ability to pass the ball into the restricted area--which is the highest FG percentage area on the court. Over the years 2K has taken steps to make this area more contested...things like contact animations, this post push, shoves and steals..deflections out of bounds factor in--but not nearly, nearly enough (more on that later) but just like real basketball, getting the ball into the paint spells certain doom for the defense. Take a look:

A good or elite finisher 2 feet from the basket on a regular basis means the defense failed. Passes into the paint should have the lowest rate of success of ANY ACTIVITY in the game. Now obviously there will always be Posting Up, Backdoor Cuts and plays like the Pick-and-Roll but none of these is zipping the ball past defenders (who fail to react) to a man right under the basket ready to score. And the issue, similar to the one with transition defense, is defenders who are clueless. A defender facing the ball should automatically be aware of it and react accordingly. This also serves as a visual indicator for the passer as well, so they'll know which players are open and know which passes run the risk of getting deflected or stolen. There's no window for any of these passes as the defender is right there in front of McGee, step for step wtih Horford and Adams is between two players:

All of them were completed.

This backdoor pass to Giannis COULD be--but the results should vary. Sometimes it should be a deflection out of bounds, thats how important it is to rein in paint passing.

Years ago I mentioned how too many steals would make the game arcady and sloppy. Sadly that time has come to pass. Deflections out of bounds are a much more realistic outcome and reward the defense by forcing the offense to operate late in the shot clock. But in a more subtle way similar to how contact shots give the defense a way to affect shots without reducing defense to blocks for everything. Better gameplay would let us see this instead of a horde of steals every game.

 Notice how aware defenders attack the ball in these instances. Especially on inbound plays. Sure, they aren't going to come up with the sexy, one-handed Deion Sanders steal but this should be the norm regarding passing inside when defenders are there. I realize the issue is that the devs don't want a game where its impossible to move the ball on the perimeter because of hyper-aggressive, ball-hawking defenders. That makes sense, hopefully they're able to differentiate defender reactions to ones inside from the much easier passes on the boundary.