I played PON because my enthusiasm was already 11 and I wanted to make a deep run. Figured that the home court advantage would dissolve your CT.
I expected my outside game to be shut down, that's why I went inside with my 56k, 97k, and 90+k big men against your 42k, 19k, and 13k guys. And yet they were somehow 17-45 shooting even with 2 guys having stupendous and marvelous IS. If you had told me I'd have been -3 levels in OD rating vs. my OS, but +5 levels in ID vs. my IS, as well as +1 in my OD vs. OS and +3 in my ID vs. IS, I would've taken that every day. Not to mention the 3 level rebounding advantage.
I just think it's a flaw in the game if a good outside defense can shut down an entire team's offense (and we had the same OD rating!), a good outside offense is impossible to stop, while a good inside offense and defense is useless because it supposedly can be somehow stopped by a bunch of little guards? This is basically how the Heathens have become a top 5 team in the world and won the NBBA title last year. They had nothing but insanely high OD and dominated. Just don't think it's realistic at all.
The thing is, I don't think high enthusiasm effects each part of the game equally. I think SB had high enthusiasm plus Playoff CT, which means his defense was going to be really outstanding.
As the playoffs progress and enthusiasm drops, defense tends to erode.
Playing high enthusiasm vs. high enthusiasm will yield a different game than average enthusiasm vs. average enthusiasm, IMHO.