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(104436622)

I just lost this PO game where I played PTB tactics. For some reason (maybe it's obvious to some, but to me was a big shocker) GE decided that my (by far) the worst player on the court should take 1/3 of all my shots. How is that possible? I played this exact same tactics multiple times during the season and only once did SF have the most shots and that was also tied along with another player with 12~ shots total I think. Why did in my PO game my SF (again, the worst player - I have my team up for sale if you want to check) shoot so many shots?! It doesn't make any sense to me at all.. I had really strong C and PF that were dominating the league this season and should by all accounts dominate this game as well (opposing C was only in Game Shape 7 also) and they were both top 6 in FG% this season and suddenly get stopped by PG playing PF and a C with game shape 7. And they were 8 & 9 with 17 and 18 IS...

I don't understand anything anymore.. I understand that PTB was not optimal tactic for my team, but at the same time they were in great shape, with maximum enthusiasm and the PG which is not for sale is 132 TSP. How did GE screw me over so badly with this shot selection?! Or am I really just missing something here? Because I honestly can't believe this just happened as my team was literally dominating everyone in the league since I dropped out of cup..

Best guess: PTB doesn’t particularly force balls inside- it’s a fast-paced offense similar to R’N’G that plays with the tactic of trying to go fast and not stall until the last second waiting for the perfect shot- if a guy thinks he has a half decent shot, he’ll shoot it rather than stall. In addition, it focuses normal, so inside isn’t priority as is Look Inside.

Exactly - which still doesn't explain why my SF (by far the worst player by all metrics) took 1/3 of all my shots? Opponent was playing a PG on PF position and my PF has 18 IS so every time he received the ball should have been "oh, that's a nice opportunity", not my SF who has really low JS.. I knew the risk, but not even in my wildest dreams did I expect the GE to make my worst player try take over the game..

It’s entirely possible the game engine played it as your PF not being fed the ball enough because there wasn’t as much push to the inside. Your SG took quite a few shots as well, I see, so my thinking is he probably didn’t feed the ball any further than the elbow or the line.

Your team can't pass therefore takes lots of bad shots. PTB is one of the worst tactics for a lack of passing imo.

Wouldn't wanna try to stop you if you were playing inside with that that level of allaround IS though.

I got your frustration, it's understandable. Working hard all season long and then losing the first playoff game and everything is done

However, PTB is a tactic that could be dangerous. Even if there are some pros, good shot selection isn't exactly what you could expect. That's the reason why having a good all around offence usually pay dividends, because specific favorable mismatches are not necessarily used throughout the game. The more offence you have, the less you have to worry about who's taking shots.
A pretty bad flow was a key factor in strenghtening bad shot selection. Anyway, to me has to be said that one of the main issues here was defense. If it's true your PF was attacking a playmaker (that possess anyway good inside skills, and it's certain because of his rating), it's true also the opposite. And 109 points are pretty high for a playoff game. In general his offence was a key part of his W.


Just to compare your game with previous PTB:
Today: Urquiza 30 shots in 48 min.
5/1: Urquiza 13 shots (led the team) in 28.
1/1: Urquiza 17 shots in 48

This only to say that it's true that his shot number increased a lot. But in other PTB he was not inactive, the 5/1 led the team in shots and should have been an indicator. And both games were against really bad defences, where a lot less challenge was put to your flow compared to yesterday.

Next time things will ends up better

Last edited by GM-samusaran (ITA-Staff) at 1/16/2019 3:43:42 AM

I think passing is important in more or less tactics anyway, but still, what I was going off of was this:

(103720190) - same lineup, minus the PG (replaced by my C due to training) - evenly distributed shots
(103720182) - again, same lineup, except at SF I had a different player who is very similar to the guy who just shot 30, so I always interchange them, most shots by my trainee at C (he's the best player anyway)
(103720203) - slightly rotated squad, evenly distributed shots among perimeter players
(103720196) - 6 shots difference between most and least shots in starting 5, exact same starting 5 as yesterday


All in all this is a neutral tactic and I'd expect shots to be more evenly distributed which was also the case in the games I've played with neutral tactics over the course of the season.

Outside tactics - mostly outside shots, they require decent passing/JS/JR between most players to get nice looks and shots off, most shots taken by perimeter players

Inside tactics - mostly inside shots, they require decen HA/DR/IS/JS/PA to drive to the basket and find player under the basket for nice looks, most shots taken by interior players/players with high DR

Neutral tactics - mixture of inside and outside shooting, entire team gets involved equally


Where is my logic for the tactics off? I'm clearly missing something? of course not all neutral tactics are the same, but to my understanding PTB is basically just a higher tempo of Basic Offense. Clearly I was wrong about that? Even though results of the games in the season were giving me that impression..

I know I'd defeat all teams in my league with inside tactic, but there was a slight chance that if a team correctly predicted both predictions and played some kind of 2-3 zone they could still defeat me, so I want to be less predictable. But I was still sure I'd be able to defeat a team clearly inferior to me..

(103720166) - here is my previous game against exact same opponent that destroyed me yesterday. That time they played at home, but we both had the same match intensity - I also played neutral tactic, but I did admittedly play 3-2 zone, which countered his outside tactic. I still don't think this difference was worth 30~ points (from me winning by 14 to me losing by 15). Or is it?

Last edited by Mod-Rn5ho [SLO U-21] at 1/16/2019 3:50:31 AM

In your previous game against him there were differences anyway, comparison is not that easy. A Run and gun offence is less effective to maximize his PF, the flow is important but shot selection is usually not as good as a good motion. And the 3-2 zone was there, taking away his PF matchup against a big man and shut down his flow. Results: 9 assists and 9 turnovers, the PF with 9 points and 0 assist.

Yesterday, motion was a better offence for him to exploit matchups. There was no 3-2 zone in putting that much pressure and there were more favorable matchup (as ratings highlight). Results: 19 assists, 10 turnovers, more FTs. The PF way more effective with 12 points and 4 assists.


The first thing I believe you have to think about is your generalization. You cannot put all tacticts together as outside, neutral or inside oriented. There are differences among them and the team you need to run those offences is not necessarily the same. RnG and motion are not equal. LI and LP are not equal either.

About neutral tactics: "team gets involved equally" it's a little bit misleading considering patient is likely the most centralizing offence in the game

A lot of what you said makes sense, except I still don't understand how GE decided that my SF should be taking 30 shots, more than my C and PF combined. This makes no sense to me, especially as it wasn't the 1st time I played this tactic and had never seen such bad shot distribution before.

Ofc examples are not 1:1, I also know the Patient tactic as I'm using it a lot, but from my observations Base Offense and Push the ball were not much different from each other, at least not as far my team's performance was concerned. These 30 shots by SF were borderline Patient level.

Last edited by Mod-Rn5ho [SLO U-21] at 1/16/2019 8:56:25 AM

Of course, 30 shots are really a lot, I'm not questioning that.

I do believe the flow was a main factor, I don't know the passing level of the PG, but 6-6-6-8 from SG to C isn't impressive. Against a proficient medium + more effort there's no doubt your flow wasn't at his best to distribute shots.
It could have been better than that? I guess yes. Was ptb a great tactic considering your strenghts and the relatively lack of JS-JR combined with low passing in your team? I don't think so.

Low flow + fast pace could lead to bad shots. And with ptb you don't have the bonus of a RnG or LI

My PG has passing 12. Obviously on top of everything he had his by far the worst game ever - the only other time he ever fouled out in an official game was 4 seasons ago at the beginning of the season in a game that didn't matter, he's a career 1.7~ PF/G and of course he fouled out with horrible statistics after 31mins in the most important game of the season while already everything else was going wrong - and he was in a decent shape also, a rather high 8.

I still think he should be able to distribute ball a bit better than he did, he's an all-around player with both defenses and shots 15+ and 131 TSP. I know there's this random factor in the GE and despite my mistakes, I think I got the the worse end of the luck on pretty much everything.


EDIT: Just saw actually that the reason for this is GE deciding to run my sub C/PF at PG after fouling out instead of my PG/SG/SF sub. Well, this basically explains everything.. as my team went -13 during those 8 minutes.