On offense, I have the tempo auto-adjust (I think this is what you were asking for) set to never and have for many seasons. I just don't feel the need to use it. If I'm losing badly enough to trigger the auto-adjust (as I recall, it kicks in if you're behind 20+ at halftime and has a sliding scale that lowers the deficit needed to trigger the auto-adjust based on the time remaining in the game), then chances are an uptempo is simply going to accentuate whatever strength my opponent is already exploiting, creating a larger blowout rather than aiding me in any way. I already have my gameplan set up to trigger a slowdown if I have any sort of a lead with under 6 minutes to play, so I don't need the auto-adjust for protecting leads.
For the defensive setting, I allow the computer to adjust my positioning if I'm behind by 5 or more at the half. I'm really not sure how the AI determines if a change is needed and how it determines whether to adjust by +2/+1/-1/-2 from whatever you were set up to start the game at, I just know that when it has made a defensive positioning adjustment for me, I can usually see the rationale and have rarely taken issue with it. I will occasionally set this to never against strong perimeter shooting teams that I run a big + defense against -- the rationale being that if I'm playing the big +, I'm doing so in order to take away the outside game. I don't want the computer to adjust me back a notch or two and suddenly enable my opponent to launch bombs at me in the second half.