I also focused on inside, due to training, but also last season i understood that a winning team should have at least some degree of balance, outside players with high ratings in shooting, range, defense handling & passing are very expensive, but you can find a quite good shooter with low defense or a good defender with high passing & handling but pitiful shooting with reasonable-low prices.
With those players a 3-2 defense works fine, 1-3-1 is a bit extreme, but useful when your oponent lacks of rebound (study your opponent) and also you have a good shooter for match end situations.
IMO TIE/CT had always affected defense , inside and outside, since i think its a percentage, the higher will go down more, and also i think long range shooting (just look my 3P percentage) but from ASG it's not showed on ratings any more. I'm not happy with that change, since playing TIE often, my opponents used to underestimate me, but now i think they are helpful to estimate real team potential
I'm also a bit worried about this match
(2846823) because it may reflect a normal/CT result. But also i believe that normal + high enthusiasm is better than CT + normal enthusiasm. (I hope it's true) btw, does this sentence " looked like the only team trying out there." mean the other team played CT?