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Box-and-One defenses: Four players play in a zone defense protecting the basket while the fifth player plays a man-to-man defense guarding the best offensive player on the other team. This prevents him from scoring as much. There are two types of box-and-one defenses:
Inside Box-and-One: The fifth defender focuses on the opponent's best inside scorer. Normal pace.
Outside Box-and-One: The fifth defender focuses on the opponent's best outside scorer. Normal pace.

Could it be, that the "fifth defender" in Inside Box-and-One is the C and the "fifth defender" in Outside Box-and-One is the PG?
It could also (not likely!) mean that the PG (the others positions are selected to the four man inside box) defends the best scorer, both in Inside Box-and-One and Outside Box-and-One, since the PG(or rather the position) is the fifth defender(position wise) when calculating the zone?

It's not a crystal clear explanation in the manual!

I sincerely thought the Outside Box-and-One one was a four-player outside zone and the C, i was thinking "Outside box" + "and one" to begin with. :-) No wonder it didn't work the way I thought it would! ;-)

But when I read the rules again (and again) I assume, that in ANY of the Box-and-One defenses you need both OD and ID (and SB and RB[more in Outside Box-and-One] as well) since the four man zone will defend against both outside AND inside players and grab rebounds!

Perhaps the best way to get the matchups desired is to blank the assignments. I also think it is a gimmick defense that in terms of being used for an entire game is only effective against someone who is a one trick pony.


A great example of this is very early in Dean Smith's career Carolina went to Kentucky and the Cats had a great scorer named Cotton Nash and the Heels ran a box in one on that guy and by games end he was resigned to just sitting in the corner watching the other players basically playing 4 on 4 as Dean pulled off his first great upset.

It doesn't work like that in this game. If you blank the defensive assignments the game will determine that for you, but once it's decided it sticks. If the other team is playing patient the GE won't assign your best defender to guard the best scorer, but it will assign him to guard the position where he defends best (so it's unlikely it will select a guard to defend a forward...)

Again, a gimmick D. Sounds like either way it is a bit of a crap shoot as to if the right guy will go Claudio Gentile on the best scorer Plus if your opponent decides to Jan you up by going patient and stacking his best shooter at C then your boned.

It happens also with other offenses. One guy often takes a lot of shots and you need to guess where the guy is going to play. Emptying the defensive assignments will not help you putting your best defender on the best offensive player (irrespective of where he plays) as far as I know.

I used patient as an example, because the issue is magnified there.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 7/22/2017 7:54:29 PM

I took a look at my Box+1 thread in my federation. At the beginning of 2015 I ran an analysis on the two Boxes. If you can wait and are interessted, I will post an english summary of the results during the next week.

Yep, sounds good :)

I'm off work today so I'm gonna have a look at some old games of my own where I've played it before. I should have close enough data and/or memory of players attributes for it to be worth something (to be anyway).

Perhaps the best way to get the matchups desired is to blank the assignments. I also think it is a gimmick defense that in terms of being used for an entire game is only effective against someone who is a one trick pony.

All the success I ever had with Box + 1 defenses is when I ran a team that was 5 starters and 2 bench guys deep basically of all similarly built players who all had 8-10 OD 8-11 ID and 5-8 SB.

All 5 could play defense interchangeably with each other. But I was forced to that end by subjecting myself to a 100% only players I draft and train team.

Last edited by RandyMoss at 7/26/2017 12:30:36 AM

At the beginning of 2015 I was very interessted in the two Box+1 defenses. The main reason was my trainee Haek. Some of you know him. At his peak, he had OD 18, ID 18 and SB 19. For me it was clear that no matter which defense I play, Haek will be the +1 defender.

So what did I do? I played several games and went through the play by play. Player by player, defense action by defense action and analyzed which of my players defended which opponent/position and what kind of shot (close, mid or long range).

Another main reason was the definition of the two boxes. The german translation says:
Innen Box plus Eins: Der fünfte Verteidiger konzentriert sich auf den offensiv besten Innenspieler des Gegners. Normale Geschwindigkeit. --> the +1 defends the best offensiv inside player

Außen Box plus Eins: Der fünfte Verteidiger konzentriert sich auf den offensiv besten Außenspieler des Gegners. Normale Geschwindigkeit. --> the +1 defend the best offensiv outside player

Here, I had a bad feeling... but I will come back to it later.

Game 1: (81780641)
Outside box +1

I thought that my Haek will defend the 130k and 1.53 mio DMI PG Roggenbach. He was the best outside player, like the description says. But the engine decided that Groner (SF, 96k and 1.11 mio DMI) was the bigger thread. It was a close call.
I was pretty angry about the fact that my SF Maksic had to defend 7 close range shot (dunks, driving layups etc.) but only one mid range shot. At the same time my PF and C defended 3pters.

Game 2: (81780645)
Outside box +1

Again Outside box+1 and accordong to the german game manual, Haek should defend the best outside player. So clear thing: 210k PG!
Yeah, it was the C with 268k and 5.84 mio DMI!!! To be honest, the C had no chance, but this wasn't the expected result. After this game I had the idea that the description is wrong.
My PF defended most of the shots. He had 22 defense actions. 8 times a 3pter, 8 times mid range and 6 times close range. And my C defended some 3pters too.

Game 3: (81780650)
Outside box +1

My third try. According to the manual I expected that Haek will defend the SG (110k and 2 mio DMI). But was afraid that he will play against the PF (79k and 1.49 mio DMI). It was the PF. And he was stopped.
My PF defended again most of the shots. He had 24 defense actions. My SF defended most of his play time inside. And my C with OD 1 had a lot of long range and mid range shots against him. So a really bad situation.


Game 4: (81780654)
Inside box +1

After three games with outside box, I went to the inside box. Here I already expected that Haek would defend the best outside player. Bullseye! It was the SG. And he had a really bad day against my defense monster ;)

At the same time my other four starters moved more to the inside. The had more mid and close range defense actions now. My idea was that Haek was at the top and the other four moved between him and the rim.


Game 5: (81780658)
Inside box +1

My guess was, Haek will defend the SG. And he defended him. 2-11 FG is a hell of a defense. The offense was moved to the other players.

My PF defended again most of the shots. 23 times. My C had 16 defense actions, and my SF was a little bit behind.



The result (for me):
Outside box: Four players move to the outside. The best OD+ID+SB player is the +1 and he gets m2m with the best calculated inside offense option of the opponent. He will stop him, but there is no guarantee that another player (2nd option) won't step up.

Inside box: Four player move to the inside. Again the best defender is the +1. But this time he defends m2m the best outside offense option.

The four players in the box switch a lot. So it's no surprise that bad OD bigs create missmatches and have to defend 3pters.