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Whether an outside shot goes in is a combination of the individual and team outside scoring rating, as well as the opposing individual and team outside defense. If a great player is the only option on a bad team, he will draw more coverage, and therefore his shooting percentage will go down; similarly a bad player on the same team will only tend to shoot outside shots when he is wide open. The same applies to other shot types.

Tactical Options

Offense

Offenses generally have an inside/outside/neutral focus and a faster/slower/normal pace compared to the base offense. They are not all equally faster/slower, as they're approximations of real offenses. A slower pace will often result in higher-quality shots, but occasionally will result in bad shots at the end of the shot clock. Fewer possessions in the game also means that scores will be lower, which means that bad teams can stay closer to good ones. An inside or outside focus means that teams will try to get more inside/outside shots, but the players will still take the best shots they can, and if the opposing inside defense is making it impossible to score near the basket, they won't attempt many inside shots no matter what you do.

• Base Offense: normal focus/normal pace all others are based off this.


• Push the Ball: normal focus, increased pace.


• Patient: normal focus, somewhat decreased pace.


• Look Inside: inside focus, slightly increased pace.


• Low Post: inside focus, somewhat decreased pace.


• Motion: outside/mid range jump shot focus, normal pace.


• Run and Gun: outside focus, increased pace.


• Princeton: outside/inside focus (fewer 2 point jump shots, regarded as outside by GDP), decreased pace.


• Isolation offenses: The team will try to find their best offensive player and clear out an area for him to create his own shot. There are two types of isolation offenses (both are considered as having a balanced focus by the GDP):
  
  Inside Isolation: Your team finds their best inside scorer. Normal Pace.
  
  Outside Isolation: Your team finds their best outside scorer. Normal Pace.

Defense

• Normal (Man-to-man): normal, all others are based off this.


• 2-3 Zone: Increased inside defense and rebounding at the expense of a lot of perimeter defense. Somewhat slow pace.


• 3-2 Zone: Increased perimeter defense at the expense of interior defense. Slow pace.


• 1-3-1 Zone: Dramatically increased perimeter defense at the expense of interior defense and rebounding.


• Full Court Press: Significant increase in created turnovers at the expense of stamina, defense, and rebounding. Very high pace.


• 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.

Game-Day Preparation

You can instruct your coach to help your players prepare with some last-minute drills against a specific offense by your opponent. You’ll gain a sizeable edge over your opponent if you can predict their offensive strategy correctly in each of two dimensions: focus (which can be inside, outside or balanced) and/or pace (which can be fast, slow or normal). On the other hand, if your prediction is incorrect, your players will be unprepared and won’t perform as well.

There is a bigger penalty for completely misreading your opponent (for example, by predicting an inside offense when they chose an outside offense) than there is if you predicted something closer (for example, by predicting an inside offense when your opponent chose a balanced one). The prediction system is entirely optional – you can choose not to select any last-minute focus, and your team will not be surprised by or prepared against any specific strategy by your opponent.

Depth Chart

You can submit your starter, a backup, and a reserve at each position using the depth chart. Your starter will typically play as many minutes as he can (as long as he is not tired and does not have foul trouble), and when a backup would be more effective, the coach will make a switch. Reserves are lower on the depth chart than backups. It's recommended to assign at least 3 starters to your lineup, otherwise, the coach might completely change the lineup

Substitution Pattern

The coach will sometimes use his own judgment to decide what the proper balance is between starters, backups, reserves, and even players on the bench who are not in the depth chart at all. You can set the balance between how much coaches use their own judgment or defer to yours with the substitutions box. You can use mostly your judgment (Follow Depth Chart), entirely the coach's judgment (Let Coach Decide), a mix between the two (Coach Picks from Depth Chart), or you can use your depth chart until the 4th quarter, then tell the coach to try and win the game however he thinks is best (Depth Chart until 4th).

In setting your tactics for a game, you might want to consider a few different factors. For example, instead of having your best players start in every game, you might want to optimize your lineup on a given game day for training purposes.

Your in-game coach will try his hardest to win; in order to optimize your training minutes, you can use the Follow Depth Chart tactic to overrule some of the coach's substitution decisions. Many managers find that using this option gives them better control of their training minutes each week.

Strong managers are able to balance a solid training regimen with an aggressive team on the court. For more information about effective training strategies, please review the rules section on training.

Enthusiasm

You can decide how hard you want your team to try on any given day (except in a scrimmage, where your team is just going to try as hard as they normally do because the coach is watching). Your team has a baseline level of enthusiasm that they bring to the game, and the more enthusiastic your team is, the harder they will be able to play. You can also tell your team to try harder in an important game (Crunch Time), although they'll need some time to recover over the next week or two. Alternatively, you can Take it Easy in a game so that your team will be able to play harder in the future. In addition, your team's enthusiasm tends back towards the default value of 5 over time. The further away enthusiasm is from 5, the more quickly it will tend back towards 5. Enthusiasm will always reach 5 during the offseason.

For particularly important games, including league playoff games, relegation games, and the late rounds of the national tournament, your players will be too excited to "take it easy". In these games, the only options available are Playoff Normal, in which your team receives the enthusiasm effects of a regular Take It Easy but the effort level of a regular Normal, and Playoff Crunch Time, in which your team receives the enthusiasm effects of a regular Normal but the effort level of a regular Crunch Time.

The final two rounds of the tournament will have playoff enthusiasm for countries with less than four divisions. For countries with four or five divisions, the final three rounds will have playoff enthusiasm, and for countries with six divisions, the final four rounds will have playoff enthusiasm.

Forfeits

A team that does not dress at least three players will receive a 50-0 forfeit loss. Furthermore, a team that incurs a forfeit will not receive training minutes for that game

As for training minutes for the winning team, the minutes will be distributed in this way:

Starters: will receive 36 minutes.
Backups(Subs): will receive 10 minutes.
Reserves: will receive 2 minutes.