Looks to me like they figured you only had one guy who could really hurt them from the perimeter, and so gambled that you wouldn’t have his distribution bumped up high. Took their chances by shutting down low post, and trying to compete on boards. They got a good sim. As you can see from the season record, it’s not like they’re *actually* breaking the engine with the approach.

yeah i don't really get the question, they beat a sim in OT in game 1 playing a 0, and then beat two teams with minimal 3pt shooting running a -5, which is a gambling strategy known to work extremely well against superior teams with minimal 3pt shooting. i don't think -5 plus fcp has anything to do with it and i don't see anything suggesting they are doing anything more broken than -5 has been for all eternity?

seems like with a team like yours you should be expecting to face a bunch of -5s in the NT, with a really good chance one of them does the trick - no?

no issues with foul trouble is what i'm saying. felix who is leading in distro and a hell of a d3 scorer on +2 only shooting 7 3's? these are my questions. these should be extraordinary outliers, but it doesn't look like it

i don't think the - is a huge impact on fouls, just a small-ish one. he had a lot more fouls the 2/4 games of the NT he didn't play the -5, and i think that is just sort of luck - there's pretty wide variance on fouls, and it looks like it broke his way both times he went -5. i mean its obvious at a glance he got lucky on tos and fouls in your game, but i'm just not sure the -5 has that much to do with either of those. perhaps it should - it definitely has always felt a little unbalanced, not denying that.

the 7 3s seems fine though, your dude played 17 minutes, how many is he supposed to throw up?

I’m not saying this is gospel or anything, but the way I look at it, IQ is a much bigger driver of fouls than setting. I don’t really see a substantial difference in fouls from when I set my press defenses at heavy negatives vs +1 or +2. I tend not to go negative much (with straight press), not because of foul trouble, but because most human opponents are getting their points from guards.

I'm kind of with Ab on this one. When I first started playing, it was explained that all things being equal a FCP fouls more than M2M or Zone. It was also explained that a packed in defense committed more fouls than a + defense (more people in a smaller area, hence more chances for fouls). It would seem, therefore, that a -5 FCP should commit the most fouls of any of the other defenses/settings. All other things being equal, of course. Maybe things have changed since then, I don't know....

The -5 foul thing is in our minds. There's a bazillion examples of this now that shows it's not a big deal. I didn't read the play by play, but what if the opponent is shooting jumpers and not all layups? Not as many fouls expected, just pull up js all night.

The -5 foul overload expectations is just dated thinking, in my opinion. The game has evolved

Everyone is entitled to their opinion I suppose, even if it's directly contrary to what the developer of the game stated.....

I suppose it's possible that he didn't know what he was talking about though....

Are we talking Adam? Or seble?

And I'm not really arguing what is and isn't. I'm just discussing what I've seen throughout my gaming career. The -5 theory isn't as strong as it once was.

When I returned to HD, most coaches were saying this same thing, that -5 would foul like crazy. But as time has went on, I've just seen the adjustment in the mindset of the consensus

Tarek......way before Seble ever thought of running the show.

Maybe as some of the updates have been made, the engine has been slightly adjusted to somewhat limit the fouls that a big minus defense was supposed to commit, I don't know. But what I posted above was straight from the guy's mouth that designed the game. Again, maybe changes have been made, who knows?

From an old developer's chat:

Why is there such a huge discrepancy when teams play the -5 or -4 and foul much less than teams playing straight up, or -1? Seems to happen alot. (shins - All-Star - 2:45 PM)

If everything else remained the same, you'd see more fouls with the packed in defense than at -1 or 0. The issue is that a balanced team will shoot more 3s against that defense (less penetration) which will produce less fouls.

That was totally 80s dude!

Nah but that was a loooooong time ago. So many changes and adjustments have been made since then. You've got dozens of championships under your belt, you don't still play by the old mindset now do ya? I mean, I agree with what you posted. As it was definitely like that in the past. But I wouldn't trust that logic any more. I know you're an OG HD coach.

i don't know that i've seen any change to the -5 fouling in the time i've been here. its always been a small-ish effect as best i can tell. it could have definitely been rebalanced when seble rewrote the sim engine getting near 10 years ago, though.

IMO the -5 has always been a little unbalanced, but i think the community just adjusted in part by valuing per higher. everyone knows if you bring those 12% 3pta teams to the NT, you are gonna face -3s to -5s the whole way and your chances of making it through are slim.

That “packed in” answer never made any sense. I always assumed tarek just misunderstood the question. If he understood the question, and believed the answer he was giving, it was either worded improperly, or the whole thing was designed completely backward. If the idea was that playing -5 was going to cause balanced offenses to shoot more 3s, and drive less, thereby drawing less fouls, then... playing -5 should cause fewer fouls, not more.

I wasn’t playing the game at the time, so I didn’t experience it. I suspect gil’s right, I think it was probably adjusted when seble rebalanced press, if it ever truly worked that way. But I suspect it might have been more along the lines of - when you put the teeth of your defense up against the place where your opponent is trying to get most of their points, + or -, you are putting yourself in position for lots of fouls. So if IQ and athleticism are not advantageous, you will foul. I think that’s definitely how it works now, in any case.