NBA 2K18 Tips: How to Pick and Roll

2017-10-24

Simply driving towards the basket to land layups and dunks won’t get you anywhere in the higher difficulty levels of NBA 2K18, you need a good offensive play to penetrate their defense. The pick and roll is the most important team skill which is run by every NBA Team because it’s an effective offensive play that can quickly break opponent’s defense. It allows one player easily drive towards the basket or create an easy shot opening for his teammate. If it is executed properly, your team will be unstoppable. Today MmoGah shares with you some tips on How to pull off the pick and roll move in NBA 2K18.

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Activating the Pick and Roll

Method 1: You hit the LB (Xbox)/L1 (PS4) button on your controller, whoever is closest to you, between your power forward or center, will be your screener. (If you’re the power forward, it’s the small forward or center).

Method 2: You can also tap the LB/L1 button and then hold the icon of the player which you want to come over.

And for both, you can let go of the button as soon as he starts to come towards you.

The Screen is set, now what?

Once the screen guy sets up in his stance, you don’t actually have to use the pick and roll. Sometimes the threat of the screen is enough for the defender to run straight into it before you even make a move. Thus, you have created an opening to move towards the basket. Other times, you can utilize the crossover, cross escape and he escapes to bait them into the screen before going the other way. Generally, you want to limit the space the defender has to fight over the screen if you do decide to go around it. So going over the screen will be harder for them and easier for you to blow by them because you’re already close to the defender.

What to do once you turn the corner

1. First, You want to look for your shot. Give the defense a second to reveal their pick and roll coverage so you’re certain your guy is open. The elite shooters like Steph curry probably won’t get as many open looks going around the screen opposed to someone like Rondo by default. Be ready to pull up regardless.

2. Next, you want to look to drive to the basket. Whether it’s because you can’t take advantage of the open jumper given to you or they went over the screen and you can blow by the defender.

3. When you’re driving and the defense packs the paint, look to see where the help defender(s) are coming from. Take note of who they’re leaving open in their rotation. Having a knock down 3-point shooter waiting just makes everybody’s job easier as the defense won’t be able to help on the drive. You and your screener have one less defender to worry about.

4. Now, if the defense takes away the easy shot, drive and covers your immediate kick out, you’ll want to look to your screen guy. If you forced him to roll, stop moving before you deliver the pass to limit the space between you to. The slowest of players will be able to eat here due to the pick and roll ball handler breaking down the defense and opening up chances for easy passes and alley oops. If you choose for the screen man to fade, you’ll want to pass it to him quickly before the defense can recover in time.

You can change your teammate’s screen position from left to right by hitting the RT/R2 button. With this, you can also task them to either roll or fade with RB/R1 which you want to utilize if your screener can shoot. Changing the direction of the screen at the last minute serves a few purposes. It can keep your opponent on their toes because the surprise of the screen is removed. Since they can’t see everything happening behind them, that’s one way to keep the element of surprise intact.

If your opponents like to ice the pick and roll (which has the on ball defender block your path) you can just switch the screen to the other side. Pick and fades is a good method to use when the screener’s defenders drop into the lane to protect the paint. You can even get creative with your pick and rolls like having Lebron James become a roller for Isaiah Thomas or Kevin Durant turning into the most lethal pick and pop threat for the Warriors. You can even have Joel Embiid screening for Ben Simmons if you want to go nuts.

Pick and roll has developed into the league’s most important offensive play, the beauty of it is no two pick and rolls are the same. A pick and roll performed by Russell Westbrook is way different than one run by Steph Curry. Amare Stoudemire screening is different than say, Brook Lopez. What remains the same is, If teams utilize this skill correctly, they are unstoppable. We hope the tips above will help you to be able to get busy in the pick and roll game.

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