Monday Tip-Off: Dunks, Layups & Three-Pointers
We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on offensive strategies in basketball video games boiling down to dunks, layups, and three-pointers.
The midrange jumpshot has become an underrated and too-often scorned method of getting buckets in the NBA. You can blame analytics and box score watchers for that, as well as the success of the Golden State Warriors in the 2010s. Threes may be worth more than twos as the saying goes, but a missed shot is worth zero, and three-pointers remain more difficult to hit; a fact backed up by consistent three-point percentages over the years. Nevertheless, modern shot charts demonstrate how the midrange is ignored in favour of shooting in the paint (sensible) and chucking threes (less so).
Ironically, despite their reputation for ushering in the three-point revolution and making the midrange jumper unfashionable, the champion Warriors actually did a lot of damage from that area. Kevin Durant operated in the midrange frequently during his Warriors run, and despite being a prolific three-pointer gunner, Klay Thompson also regularly attempted shots inside the arc but beyond ten feet. The midrange was Shaun Livingston’s bread and butter. Nevertheless, the philosophy is to either get those extra points with three-pointers, or go for the high percentage shot with dunks and layups at the rim. To that end, it reflects a long-time basketball gaming strategy!
That’s not to say that we basketball gamers don’t take midrange jumpers, especially those of us who are simheads that love to play a realistic style. There’s merit in it, too. In well-designed sim games – even going right back to the 90s – you couldn’t always just barrel into the lane and finish with dunks and layups. It was still a good idea to take those good looks of course, but misses, rejections, and charging fouls were all possibilities. Similarly, with the way that arcade games would rubber-band to keep things competitive, mixing up the offense with midrange jumpers was a good way of avoiding the inevitable rim stuffs and sudden cold streaks from three-point range.
However, midrange jumpshots have quite often been risky on the virtual hardwood, particularly before the adoption of mechanics such as shot meters and Green Releases. I remember being a wide-eyed newcomer to the World Wide Web in the late 90s and discovering a strategy guide for NBA Live 96, which warned against taking midrange jumpers. I’m paraphrasing here, but basically it said the worst shot in the game was the very long two, as it carried all the risk of a three-pointer without the reward of an extra point. In short, that guide was preaching “threes are worth more than twos” some twenty years earlier, albeit in regards to video games rather than real hoops.
It was solid advice in a game such as NBA Live 96 PC. It is certainly possible to make jumpers in those early NBA Live titles, but even with good timing and a great shooter, the dice roll for success isn’t always kind. While there’s more realism in that generation of sim titles than their simpler graphics may lead many people to believe, they didn’t always reward staunchly adhering to a realistic approach when it came to the number of attempts from the midrange. It was still safer to rely on getting into the paint to keep scoring with dunks and layups, and going for three-pointers with long-range marksmen when we had a good look, or were desperate to cut into a deficit.
As a result, for many gamers, offensive strategy essentially boiled down to dunks, layups, and three-pointers. Sure, you’d take a midrange shot if you had a good look and you were a fan of the sim style, but if you wanted to win, it was always risky. Without sophisticated shooting mechanics and feedback, not to mention a method of guaranteeing makes, a series of unlucky dice rolls could easily lead to a slew of bricks that’d quickly put you in a hole, whether you were facing the CPU or another gamer. As that old strategy guide for NBA Live 96 advised, if you wanted to take the risk, it was wiser to step back and try to reap the reward of three points rather than just two.
Although the midrange jumper became a more effective weapon as games improved, the strategy of dunks, layups, and three-pointers was extremely habit-forming. It was, after all, logical and effective. However, as we saw better collisions and physics, AI that was smarter, and more realism in general, those old school strategies rapidly grew outdated. Whereas taking too many attempts in the midrange once meant giving up points, ignoring it and trying to force the issue inside or from downtown was now a great way to end up on the wrong side of a deficit. Again, basketball video games not only predicted the NBA’s style of play come the 2020s, but also the consequences!
In any case, as a simple approach of dunks, layups, and three-pointers became less effective without picking your spots and taking advantage of the midrange, it was a wake-up call. I’d suggest that many gamers who considered themselves simheads came to realise that they hadn’t been playing as realistically as they thought. This led to developing new strategies and stick skills, but also some long-time hoops gamers re-evaluating just how much realism they actually wanted to have in sim titles! I’m not passing judgement here. Indeed, I’ll raise my hand and admit that I’m a sim gamer who realised just how reliant I was on sticking to dunks, layups, and three-pointers.
I’d like to think that I’ve been able to broaden my offensive repertoire on the virtual hardwood as gameplay improvements have encouraged it, but habits are difficult to break. Beyond the success rate of dunks and layups, and the reward of that extra point on three-pointers, most of us want to have fun and create spectacular highlights when we play. As much as midrange jumpers are effective weapons and beautiful in their own way, when it comes to flair, they don’t quite measure up to a thunderous poster dunk or acrobatic layup. The distance and difficulty of three-pointers also means that a pull-up trey that finds nothing but net is still flashier than a basic midrange jumper.
And so, even though I have come to make better use of the midrange, sometimes I do fall back into the habit of dunks, layups, and three-pointers, notably in MyCAREER. Again, the desire to produce highlights is a huge factor here. I can’t dunk from the foul line or throw down a 360 windmill on a ten foot hoop in real life, so it’s fun to give my avatar that ability! It’s also my aim to win, and sometimes that means taking it inside more often for a shot that’s even higher percentage thanks to my player’s attributes and Signature Skills. With that being said, I have tried to incorporate the midrange into my arsenal more often while playing MyCAREER in various games.
This actually made my playthrough of NBA 2K15 MyCAREER quite refreshing! As I decided to model my MyPLAYER after Terry Hanson, I found myself taking more midrange shots than usual, especially while I was still levelling up my three-point rating. It was satisfying to go down into the post, throw a fake, and then turn the other way for a fadeaway. I shot more floaters, and made a habit of pulling up at the foul line, sometimes with a nifty spin beforehand as CPU Hanson does in NBA 2K14. Yes, I ended up taking more threes, and I certainly enjoyed throwing it down with Top Floor Terry, but it was fun mixing it up with more diversity in my style of play.
Mind you, even though I’ve come to make greater use of the midrange in games that reward it, I’m not immune to falling into old habits. For that matter, as much as I’ll criticise the modern NBA, it has impacted my approach to taking three-pointers on the virtual hardwood! To that point, while digging through my archives, I found a box score from my Season in NBA Live 96 PC using my 1998 roster. In that game, played on 12-minute quarters, I took 19 three-pointers; more than the 11.7 that the real Bulls attempted per game that year, but not a highly unusual amount for that era. In fact, five teams averaged around that many three-pointers in 1998, led by Houston’s 20.4.
Glancing at some other box scores in my archives, I had games where I attempted 15, 16, and just six three-pointers; in other words, a realistic number that was, on average, only slighter higher than in real life. Compare that to most of my MyCAREER games with a point guard that can shoot threes, where I’ve been known to take 19 or more three-pointers while controlling just one player! I’ve definitely become comfortable with firing away from range in newer games, though sometimes that habit carries over to my retro gaming as well, inflating the number of makes and attempts relative to the time period. Of course, plenty of dunks and layups accompany those three-pointers!
At the end of the day, the important thing is that you enjoy your time on the virtual hardwood. Even as a simhead, you’re bound to end up accepting some reasonable breaks from reality here and there, since they’re pretty much inevitable. Still, it’s funny how a long-time video game strategy essentially predicted the analytics-driven style of the modern NBA: take it inside for the high percentage shot, launch threes at will, and don’t take the risk of a lower percentage long-range attempt unless an extra point is on offer. I wish I could still find that guide – I believe it was on GameSpot – but it doesn’t seem to be in my archives, and Google suggests that it’s long-deleted.
If you find yourself favouring a strategy of dunks, layups, and three-pointers, know that you’re not alone! It’s served us well on the virtual hardwood for years, though as games have improved, we’ve had to be more crafty and judicious, as well as embrace the midrange jumper. That’s not a bad thing, though the lure of posterising a defender or splashing a timely trey remains difficult to resist. I believe that variety on offense produces the most fun in real hoops and video games alike, though at least in games, broken and primitive mechanics give us an excuse to stick to dunks, layups, and three-pointers. In real life, it’s not the evolution that box score watchers insist that it is.
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