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His roster was superior ($ 247,974 more in salary) and I was going to lose it anyhow; more he had superior GS over me (9 of his top earners were in GS 9, compared with only 4 in my team). And lets not forget he is a damn good manager. To use that match as an example is analogous as if someone says it was Sharman's Princeton that was decisive here (36548637). You and I ... we were destined to lose in the respective games.

But don't get me wrong, LI is very strong with the current top big players who are packed with a lot more IS than ID. Most top teams (playing in the final stages of the B3) are like clones to each other with IS >> ID. It's a mater of who will score more in LI. Don't underestimate the power of "like" in the aforementioned sentence. Still some are more careful in the overall roster build-up, GS and Enthusiasm management ... and have more success. It's the finesse that makes the difference. I wish

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@ LA-Wolph: I really can't tell how would I've made it in China or Italy, Spain ... , but most likely not extremely good.
And don't mind me for using LI in the majority of my games (even though it's not the vast majority). When I started playing BB (back in Season 3 - OK, it was Season 4 to be more correct) I had better C's and PF's than guards so inside focused offense was my logical first choice. Old habits die hard, I guess. It's more an emotional bond to LI than other preference.

I'd be interested to see your % breakdowns for defence, probably like offence or even worse favoring of MtM, and for B3 finals etc. MtM is almost as predictive it seems as LI of the winner.

It's as predictive as a Hollywood comedy romance - m2m in 90%. Zone is a more like a desperate measure to me, a sign of inability to be effectively defend with m2m. The gamble is always present. Sometimes it could work in my favor as it was with 3-2 zone here (38851529) - it was an away match against very strong opponent which I was 90% certain will go with outside focused offense and also 100% sure I was going to lose with m2m. If he went for the LI I was dead. I had other positive experience with 3-2 zone. RB is the biggest sacrifice with it and I'm not willing to give that aspect of the game away.

On the other hand, I only remember very few matches when I ended victorious using 2-3 zone against LI. I can think of (28933502). It was also an away B3 match, he had dominant C (at that time he had 280k, playing at PF position; my poor 60k PF) and a big gamble from me once again. My intention was not to try to stop my opponent from scoring (he was gonna score with the C's in m2m; and with guards in 2-3 zone - as he actually did) but to try to narrow the RB gap combined with the fast paced R&G offense I decided to play. The RB comparison in MR is a good indication how inferior I was at RB (even with 2-3 zone I had lower MR in RB than him playing with 3-2 zone!). If I played m2m I was going to give him a lot more than 14+ RBs and maybe lose. Most other desperate 2-3 zones ended with me losing.

I'd say I like to mix offensive tactics a lot more than the defensive ones :)

Edit: my position on the "effectiveness" LI is identical with Captain Zero Sparrow's. I don't expect to see a burst of ID 20+ Centers in the next period and LI will still dominate globally.

Last edited by Onisifor at 10/28/2011 6:32:11 PM

Some people here must be playing a different game.

The problem is very simple.

There are several offences which work well, in my opionion in this order: LI, Motion, R&G and Base.

Base is the most balanced so it's natural counter is man to man unless it is a very unbalanced team playng it.

Motion and R&G are outside focussed offences and they have counters. The 3-2 and 1-3-1 zones both work well.

The problem is that while there are at least four offences that work (2 outside, 1 balanced and 1 inside) there are only three defences that work (again in my opoinion of order man to man, 3-2 and 1-3-1 {and 1-3-1 only works against very specific types of teams}). None of them are designed to stop an inside attack. This is the problem.

Can you imagine Phil Jackson saying one week, "We are up against a strong outside attack so we will focus our efforts on the perimeter and deny their outside shooting with a 1-3-1 zone."

Then next week Phil gathers the players, "Well we are up against an inside attack so there is nothing we can do, lets just look inside ourselves and try to score more."

Ridiculous.

So the obvious and simple solutions are:

1) Fix the 2-3 zone which is supposed to stop an inside attack but which doesn't because it is the fault of the managers because they don't have the right players with at least wondrous OD, ID and SB.

2) If they are determined to keep the 2-3 zone useless because it is the fault of the managers that we don't all train players just so that they can play in a 2-3 zone then introduce a new tactic that does slow down inside attacks. As I have already said something like "Double Down" which happens all the time in real basketball where a guard doubles the post player preventing them making any sort of move and forcing them to shoot a very contested shot or pass the ball back out.

As I know some people are still trying to argue 2-3 is a choice. Nothing needs to be fixed.

Gotta love your "strategy" in the final series.

You go LI man vs LI man, you win.

Then for some strange reason you go LI 3-2 vs LI man.

If you call that "strategy", it no surprise the lions share of deciding games are LI vs LI.

Buzzerbeater is becoming "Guy drives on my guy, hope not to get a foul, I drive on guy, hope for bucket or foul."

The second game was supposed to be an intentional loss game -_- .

I'm quite sure that something will change. Probably LI is not going to be as effective as it is, because ID will count more than it actually is. Or probably SB will be the key to stop LI. Or probably outside offenses will be more effective. I don't know that, but the GM-s definitely understand that something must be changed and they have a lot of alternatives. Let's see which one they will choose :)

Motion win against LI in a decisive final match (39325931).

Well I'm sure there have been enough attempts to stop Look Inside using different defensive strategies provided at the moment. But with the current defense, apparently there is no "absolute" tactic (whether there is an absolute tactic is another question) to defend Look Inside well.
In any defense (and offense for that matter), something has got to give out, and it's a matter of minimizing whatever that has to be given out. And apparently Look Inside is one of the more effective tactics that allows maximum damage to the opponent's defense (in another words, opponent has a hard time trying to minimize the thing that has to be given out from their defense).

I suppose the problem lies in the question of this thread itself...

A well played 2-3 zone can stop a LI.

The thing is there are not many teams who can play en effective 2-3 but there are many who can run an effective inside offense.

I would change some words;

The thing is there are not many teams who can play an effective 2-3, but there are many who can run a 3-2 with so great performance and without the need to have special players.

(39346658)
Motion win against LI Away:)
30 Rebounds less:)