Category: How to Get Better at NBA 2K21

Playmaking is an important skill for any guard in NBA 2K, as it can separate you from the mediocre guards and set your team up for easy wins. In this article we break down the best tips to not only set your teammates up for success, but yourself, too.

Max out your Ball Handle, Speed with Ball and Pass Accuracy: These are the most important stats for becoming a top-tier playmaker, and maxing these out will give you the necessary badge points as well.

Equip the right badges: Here’s out list of best playmaking badges. Quick First Step, Handles for Days, and Killer Combos are a good start, but there are a few others that will help you dribble and pass better.

Equip the right dribble animations: Here’s out list of the best dribble moves.

Learn how to dribble: Learning how to use the dribble moves, chaining moves, and when to use certain moves is necessary for breaking down defenders. Practicing in the MyCourt or Gatorade Gym is only going to help you get better.

Notice Passing Lanes: Passing lanes are important on defense and offense. On offense, you want to avoid throwing in crowded passing lanes, so you’ll need to learn them from experience. The Needle Threader badge will also help you make tough passes.

Focus on getting your teammates involved: It’s easy to get tunnel vision as the primary ball handler, so you want to place special emphasis on looking for open teammates and making timely passes.

Ultimately, playmaking involves a lot of quick decisions, something that only comes from a lot of practice and playing experience. However, the above tips helped me and others become better primary ball handlers, and we know they will help you as well.

Becoming a top-tier slasher is a unique skill in NBA 2K23 when the majority of player simply run at the rim and hold the square button. In this article we will teach you to become a top-tier slasher who can finish almost everything at the rim.

Max out your slashing stats: Driving layup and driving dunk are a must, with standing dunk being important for big men. Try to match your attributes with the Contact Dunk requirements, but you don’t necessarily need high ratings to be a good finisher.

Equip the right finishing badges: Here are the best finishing badges in NBA 2K23. Limitless Takeoff, Posterizer, and Slithery are some of the best, but the Tier system shakes this up a bit.

Learn the timing for your dunks: The new dunk meter makes it a bit tough to dunk, but learning the timing on them from practice in the Gatorade gym allows you to get crazy contact dunks and other great animations. The Pro Touch badge also helps on this.

Utilize Slithery : This finishing badge can be activated on contested layups by simply aiming your stick diagonal-up towards the baseline and swinging it to the center area. This mechanism works a good amount of the time and helps you get some crazy animations and finishes.

Be patient: Simple rim-running gets you contact dunks every once-in-a-while, but patient slashing is better. This method involves pump fakes, taking layups instead of forcing dunks, and passing when you don’t have a good shot.

If you follow these tips when playing any game mode, your percentage at the rim will greatly increase. I was able to use this tips to finish ridiculous layups and dunks at the hoop with only 1 finishing badge, so you can imagine how it will be when your player has many more.

Playing good defense is a very important part of being a good NBA 2K player, but the learning curve can be pretty steep for a new player. Here are the best tips we’ve found for playing better defense in this year’s game:

Beef up your defensive stats: If you’re a guard or wing, max out the perimeter defense, lateral quickness, and steal. If you’re a big, max out rebounding, interior defense, and block.

Pick the right badges: Here’s out list of best defensive badges for every position and tier. Picking the right badges is instrumental for playing better defense, as they are meant to help your manual defensive inputs.

Learn the passing lanes: The passing lanes are simply where your opponent passes the ball. When playing off-ball defense, you want to close off the areas where your opponent may pass the ball so you can get easy steals. This is only learned by playing the game.

On-ball defense: The key to on-ball defense is predicting your opponents’ moves. You won’t always guess correctly, but over time you’ll get better, start getting bumpy on the ball handler, and get the stops you need on the defensive end.

Rebounding for Big Men: You’ll need the Rebound Chaser and Boxout Beast badge, and the most important tips to rebounding are to box out your opponent, guess where the ball will land, and correctly time your jump for the board.

Although defense is a highly instinctual part of the game, these basic tips can help you become the best defender you can be.