Om nom nom nom (via SI Vault)

Welcome back to BAD. Before we begin preparing for Chris's journey to tomorrow night's incredible Dollar Beer Night in Sactown, I'd like to have a brief moment of silence for the 76ers dozen-game losing streak, which was sadly broken up by the dismally bad and battered Warriors last night.

...

Thank you.

Another not-really-brief NBA2K10 update, since this feature has turned out to be much more popular than I had anticipated:

Remember how I said in my last post I couldn't dunk? Well, I guess I was wrong. After upgrading my vertical and such, I finally dunked last night against the Clippers. Just stuffed it right in Baron Davis's face. (There's your "Dan B., unintentional dirty quote machine" moment of the day) However, this posterizing move apparently pissed off the Clippers, and they went on a rampage while my team went absolutely ice cold from the field. We lost, but I got a decent teammate rating to help me boost my skill points, plus a nice stat line (17/6/7, 2 steals).

We then proceeded to lose to the Heat by two freaking points in overtime, and I actually fouled out thanks to intentional fouls late (From somewhere in the shadows, I heard Wilt Chamberlain's ghost call me a chump before it went back to poring over stats). However, I still pulled down an A+ teammate rating and had another solid stat line (17/5/4, 2 steals, 1 block). And coincidentally enough, remember how I mentioned Knee-Mac yesterday? Well, turns out he got traded to the Heat in my game, so I got to see his creaky joints in action! ...He hit 85% from the field against us. /facepalm. The highlight of the game was me hard-fouling D-Wade. I basically threw him down from mid-air, and he dropped to the floor like a sack of wet cement. There was a nice long cutscene of him writhing around in pain on the floor and taking ages to get up... and then he magically was fully healthy and able to effortlessly sink both his foul shots. I love this game.

Oh, and before that loss to the Clippers, we played the Timberwolves. And lost in double-overtime. The T-Wolves are over .500 in my game after trading for Greg Oden. What the hell? Really? Okay, maybe this game isn't quite as realistic as I'd like...

Worst of the Night in Pictures:

Hi.

"So what? So, let's dance!"

"Yes, Jrue. That gigantic hole in the Warriors defense is your golden ticket to breaking this losing streak."

Tyler Hansbrough looks on in fear from a safe distance, wondering what Vinsanity is doing.

We're about half a second away from some man love here.

We're about half a second away from some serious (and unwanted) man love here...

Nationally Televised Games:

Nyets at Crabs: LeBron's surely dancing in anticipation of this game. The Nyets are averaging 89.3 points per game, and shooting just 41.5% from the floor. Go ahead, let that sink in for a minute, I'll wait.

All The Other Games:

Knicks at Bobcats: Sorry, while you were thinking about the Nyets' sucktitude, I was double-checking the pantry to make sure I had plenty of canned goods in preparation for the upcoming apocalypse. What, you didn't hear? The Knicks have won four straight games!

Raptors at Heat: I wonder if Comcast's guide is advertising this game as Jermaine O'Neal going up against his former team?

Lakers at Bulls: The Lakers are on their longest road trip so far this season, and Kobe's chucking up bricks with his broken finger. Huzzah! (Now, watch Kobe go off and drop 40 points tonight just to spite me.)

Pistons at Rockets: Okay, the Pistons have won five straight. However, included in there are wins against the Wizards Generals, the 76ers, and the Warriors. Not going to hop on that bandwagon quite yet...

Spurs at Suns: While they're undefeated at home, it's been five straight road losses now for the Suns. Coach Alvin Gentry: "We lost our rhythm. We are a rhythm team." Come on, Coach. Everybody knows that the rhythm method doesn't work. (What? Oh, sorry. I just got done reading this depressing article and got confused. Come on, people. Wrap it up.)

Kings at Trailblazers: Okay, this is totally unfair. How is Sacramento supposed to be prepared for this game? They're too busy worrying about tomorrow's drunken orgy debacle game to care about this game.

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17 Comments:
Blogger BJ said...
The snap of Vince Carter needs to be cast in bronze in 1/10 scale -- it's the annual Bawful Awards!
-BJ

Blogger chris said...
Dollar Beer Night would NOT be necessary if...

well...

Let this one commenter from the Sacramento Bee article on the upcoming game speak:

Howard97:
If however, you want to be able to sit anywhere near the center so you can see the game properly, be prepared to fork over more than many playoff team's fans. Hell, it's even cheaper to go see LeBron if you happen to be in Cleveland.


sigh.

Anonymous Lucas said...
Did anyone happen to read Kevin McHale's comments on LeBron's dancing?

While Noah’s stance was limited to just words and a stare down, McHale believes if such a move was done during his time, somebody would’ve been put on their ass. Even if they’re The King.

“If a guy was doing the Riverdance like that, coach would come over and say, ‘Who’s got the fewest amount of fouls of my big fellas?’ ” the ex-Celtic and TNT analyst said recently. “If you raised your hand, he would say, ‘We will let him drive and then we will throw him on the ground.’

“When he is laying there we would say, ‘Do you feel like dancing now?’

“And that pretty much solved the dancing problem.”

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@ Lucas:

Good for Kevin McHale, God bless 'im. If this were the late 1980's NBA, someone would've knocked LeBron on his a--; especially since they were already losing by 20 in a bulls--t game.

Seriously; are these guys cowards? Do they have no pride whatsoever? It can't be the flagrant foul/ejection/fine they would get from putting that S.O.B. on the floor that's stopping them, can it? Hell; someone punching LeBron in the face could maybe be a rallying point for the team: "don't give up on the season yet".

Blogger XForce23 said...
In response to your My Player experience, I always wanted to ask: since you have first-hand experience of how to play basketball, don't you find it easier to pick up a good teammate rating and just do better overall?

On my game I'm a 6'2" PG drafted by Portland, and doing pretty well. Except my team can't defend to save their lives sometimes

Anonymous Anonymous said...
you could always turn off computer trading in NBA 2k10...

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
The Spurs are showing some absolutely embarrassing examples of how not to defend the pick and roll, and it's only 10-5.

1) Nash gets a pick at the top of the arc from Frye, goes right. McDyess comes out and shows, but doesn't really get there in time. Nash ends up going right past him. Parker? He got picked off by McDyess. Fail.
2) Nash gets a pick from STAT, and drives. Duncan shows, but is blown right past. Parker takes waaaay too wide of an angle, and Nash gets a layup with nobody within 5 feet of him.
3) Nash gets a pick again from Amar'''''e from the same position. This time when he drives, Duncan decides to stay back. Parker, though, doesn't seal off the passing lane, and sticks around too close to Nash, who passes it to a freed up Sun Tzu for an open dunk.

Timeout. Clinic is open.

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
More clinic-ry from the Suns. Nash gets a pick from Frye up high, and Duncan retreats all the way to inside the FT line. Nash drives, Parker follows, and Nash drops it back for Frye, who hits an open 3. Seriously guys, read your scouting reports; only one guy has hit more 3s than Frye.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I nominate Dan B for Worst of the Night, as he stat cursed Kobe right to 42 points in a win over Chicago. When will he learn...?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Now, watch Kobe go off and drop 40 points tonight just to spite me."

He dropped 42.

Blogger Unknown said...
#24 -> 42 points.

Kobe hates you.

Blogger 49er16 said...
@Chris: That's why I quite going to Kings games. They simply priced everyone out.

Blogger 49er16 said...
Dick Bavetta is once again pulling down the Kings pants and fucking them.

Blogger chris said...
49er16: BUT BUT BUT $10 TICKETS ARE STILL LEFT!

Ya mean that they'd fill those seats by pricing ALL ranges effectively first, as opposed to last-minute pandering? Gee.

In any case, I'm looking forward to my live-from-the-scene-for-Bawful experiences witnessing the potentially witless walk-up crowd!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
My player mode is indeed extremely addictive. Bawful, if you find yourself struggling for stats/minutes/all-star votes etc, you can always jack up your minutes per quarter in the presentation menu.
I find to get the team ppg to a realistic level, 9 minutes per quarter is fine.
Or if you wanna be like my friend, he plays 12 minutes quarters per game, and recently dropped 94 points on the Lakers.
muttonhead.

Blogger Dan B. said...
FYI guys, I'm the Basketbawful staff's 2K10 addict. Bawful actually hasn't gotten the game yet. (I've almost convinced him, but he does have a point when he says that he already commits too much of his time to the NBA, so it's hard to justify getting addicted to an NBA game again like he used to do in the past. Fair point.) Just to clear up any confusion.

Kevin -- I actually haven't played any pickup hoops in about 8 or 9 years (I'm 25, the last time I played was sometime in high school). I didn't really know what the hell I was doing back then, and only played with my friends who were equally bad, so it doesn't really translate over at all. However, beyond that, just on general basketball knowledge, I see where you're coming from. However, as you noted, your AI teammates are bad at defense. Really bad. Unfathomably bad. My team's interior defense is non-existent. Whenever we play a team that has a decent big man, we lose because he'll put up a 24 point, 10 rebound effort. So, on defense, I have to take a LOT of chances and gambles (double-teams, defending off my guy to prevent him driving the lane, trying to swat down passes and make steals to prevent the ball going inside, etc.), and this results in letting my man score uncontested baskets every once in awhile, but not as many points as we'd give up if I didn't play that hard on defense. Not to mention it's hard just to guard your own guy since the AI can juke and fake quicker than you can, so they can burn you on the pick-and-roll pretty easily if you get just a touch behind, or they can drive, stop, and put up the fadeaway jumper before you even begin to slow your feet down.

On the offensive end, my teammates just suck at making realistic basketball decisions, so they put up a lot of poor-percentage shots and fail to get rebounds, so again I have to do a lot of the work. Whenever I make a "Good Pass" to Parker or Ginobili, I'll try to come over and set a pick for them... and they'll roll to the opposite side and invalidate my effort. Then Parker will stand around and dribble out shot clock and the rest of my teammates will just stand still, so we end up with either a poor shot or a shot clock violation, and if I try to call for a pass to get Parker to move, the game yells at me sometimes. Just stupid things like that. If the AI were smarter and played with actual basketball sense, then yes, it'd be easier to get a good teammate rating and win. As it stands, I can either get an A+ and lose, or get a B or B+ and maybe win. It's more fun to actually win games.

Anonymous RE: My Player mode -- Actually, on the (still-unpatched) PC version, My Player mode quarter length is fixed at 5 minutes unless you hack the game, which I'm considering doing since it's so ridiculous to have every other team getting realistic stats except mine. It sounds like a lot of people on the 2ksports forums are changing theirs to 8 minute quarters, which sounds pretty reasonable.

Multiple Anonymous commentors on Kobe: Hey now, it's only a stat curse if it's not something that's already destined to happen. Saying "now, watch the sun rise in the east tomorrow morning" is hardly a stat curse, because you know it's gonna happen. Saying Kobe's going to drop 40 right after a really, really bad game (by his standards) is also something that you just KNOW is going to happen. It's what he does. Unfortunately. So, in summary, I refuse to take the blame on this one. Now, if I said that about Pau Gasol or Ron-Ron, it'd be a different story...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@Dan.B.
Sorry for my misunderstanding, and I highly recommend you patch your game if you can, or do the hack for the quarter minutes.
The game is extremely, extremely glitchy and buggy unpatched, as you may have gleamed from the 2k forums, with player clones, 2nd season crashing completely, drills permanently remaining at -1.
I know, because I played all the way to my second season before the game completely died on me.
82 games of dragging the Knicks to the finals down the drain. (I play on PS3.)
You can imagine my screams of agony.
So please, if you can, patch your game! Before it's too late!


P.S. If you having trouble, winning games, just play like Kobe. Even though I HATE Kobe. Just stand at the perimeter, call for the ball repeatedly, and do cheese your way inside for repeated layups. Ignore the AI pg's feeble attempts at running the offense, and just dominate possession with pick and rolls and isos. If you don't mind cheesing big time, and being a general ball hog that is.
Muttonhead.