As always, defense remains a huge priority for the gameplay team. We know all the offensive upgrades in the world don’t make for a fun game if there are no counters to stop them, so let’s talk about some of the great enhancements on the other end of the floor.
Shot defense received a nice overhaul for NBA 2K24. Up until last year, we used a simple shot defense calculation that looked at two specific points: the location of the defender when the shot started and the proximity to the ball at release. It worked well, but also had its shortcomings. If the defender’s hand or arm moved slightly into a bad position, right at the point of our shot release calculation, you could get a bad coverage score even though it looked like a very good contest.
This year, we’ve created a system that evaluates the defensive player’s contesting hand throughout a window of the shooting motion. This larger sample set provides way more accurate results and helps line up the coverage numbers to what players expect based on what they see happening on-screen.
For the floor game, on-ball defensive movement and body ups received a major refresh with new content that more accurately depicts today’s 1-on-1 player interactions. You’ll also notice a new indicator on the ball handler when in guarding position. This is the new defensive shading mechanic. The three bars on the indicator represent three zones: Straight up, Shade left, and Shade right. The zone the defender’s in is shown in red. If the ball handler attempts to attack a red lane, they’ll get cut off, lose their dribble, or fumble the ball.
Great defenders can anticipate where the ball handler is attacking and will now be more clearly rewarded for it. The shading system works for both on-ball defenders guarding the perimeter as well as the post and does a good job communicating to both the offense and defense why collisions resolve the way they do.