I wanted to throw out an idea about running slowdown vs press...

Most things I've read suggest it's a bad idea. My thinking is it should actually increase their fatigue and foul opportunities, as they have to chase my team around double-teaming for a longer period of time every possession. Slowdown should also allow me to keep my better BH/P players on the floor longer. The flip side is that more passing (due to slowdown) while being pressed could lead to more TO opportunities. I run a 10-player Motion/Man team (1 RS, 1 WO), FYI. This season, due to depth issues, I'm deciding between Slowdown O and playing less players to Getting Tired or playing Normal O and playing more to GT. This would be an infrequent thing to be used vs human-coached press teams. Thoughts?

If you slow down, you are not *directly* increasing their fatigue or fouls. You’re decreasing your own fatigue, making your team a little more likely to make shots and a little less likely to turn the ball over. The drawback is that you allow the opponent to also mitigate their own fatigue damage, so if they have lower than optimal stamina for a pressing team, you won’t be able to exploit that.

If the game engine was a bit more intelligent, slowdown vs a press would be a disaster. Turnover city. The game engine is not very intelligent though, and it doesn’t work that way.

In this game, it seems to me that slowdown basically just lets starters play more minutes. It means fewer overall shots. That is about it.

Less overall shots and starters in more can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on how good the other team is, how much better their starters are that your starters and their bench is than your bench, etc.

But in the end, less shots overall in the game means the game SHOULD be closer at the end regardless of talent differential. So, I really only play slowdown if I am outclassed completely or if I have a huge disadvantage against my opponent's bench, etc. Or maybe if all my backups are new and do not know my Offensive and Defensive sets, etc.