NBA Showdown: Custom Rules and Custom Gameplay Styles, Defensive Schemes

 With NBA Showdown only getting one actual year of play, it leaves the door open to many chances to tweak and add some custom house rules. These are the playstyles that I have come up with that work best for me. As a sim style enthusiast I keep trying to find ways to make it more like real life and less arcadey, and while I know it won't be fully achieved, these have been some nice steps in my play testing.

Basic Game Rules:

Things you will need: Cards, Dice, paper and pencil, or your favorite spreadsheet

Choose 5 players from your team and put each one in a position that they can play.
Set aside your remaining players, your bench, and don't use them this game until you are more familiar with the game play.
Roll to see which player will go first, highest score wins the jump ball and will receive the opening turn in the first and fourth quarters. Loser of the jump ball will receive opening possession in the second and third quarters.

Team on offense first will choose one of his players. The higher the offense the better. Whoever the opponent had matched up with them for the quarter, you take your players offensive score, and subtract it from your opponents defensive score. Add +1 to your die roll for every point of Offense your player has more than the Defense of your opponent. (You don't have to subtract if your offense is lower than the defense in the basic game.

Mark the scores of the game on you paper/excel sheet. 

After that round, turn both players over so you can identify who still needs to go. 

Now repeat this step with the remaining four players of each team until the quarter is finished, with the team that won the jump ball choosing the player that will start each turn first.  Now that all the players have gone, mark your total quarter score, and turn all your players back over to begin the next quarter. Whoever went second in the first quarter now goes first and will kick off the new quarter. 

Now go ahead and play the rest of the game!!!!!

Once you are comfortable playing the basic game, you can start adding in hot and cold markers (I use pennies and dimes), assists and rebounds. You don't need to use them all at once, can all be added in over time.

Hot and Cold Markers

When a player rolls a natural 20, the player is hot and gets a +4 to their additional match-up bonuses.

When a player rolls a natural 1, the player is cold and gets a -4 to their additional matchup bonuses.

(If a player with a hot marker rolls a 1, remove the hot marker instead of applying the cold marker, and vice versa. You can have more than 1 marker of the same type on a player)

Assists

Start the game with an assist marker on the "0" space of each Assist Track (the numbered boxes). Each time you get an assist result (+1, +2, etc.), move your marker up that many spaces. Then, after you make a roll (and add any bonuses), you can also add any number of assists you have to the roll. For each assist you add to the roll, you must move your assist marker down 1 space. Assists carry over from quarter to quarter-you don't reset the Assist Track at the end of the quarter.

Rebounds

Rebounds are done by quarter. Keeping track of each teams rebounds throughout the quarter once the fifth and final turn is done for each team subtract the two teams totals from each other, whichever team has the advantage in rebounds, gets that number added to their score at the end of the quarter. 

Example: Team 1 has 17 and Team 2 has 15, Team 1 gets to add 2 points to their end of the quarter score.

Play out the whole game that was in the basic Rules of the game. 


Advanced Rules of the Game:

The advanced game may be similar to the basic but with more strategic rules put in place over the course of the game. Match-ups are more crucial, along with each team manager being able to choose which player will guard the player that is up, without having to use them that turn for offense. The depth of a person bench will become more important. Also when in the Advanced game each players turn will require 3 rolls. The first roll is the scoring roll, the same way but it is only for points. This is the only turn where you can earn a hot or cold marker. The second roll, still offense vs defense is the assist roll. The third and final roll is the rebound roll. This way players have the chance for box scores to not read the exact same in each game and has played out very fun in the play tests that I have done. Negative outcomes from the offense vs defense in the advanced game may be applied to the players roll. 

In the advanced game instead of 5 players per team per quarter, it will now have an additional player for each team, the 'sixth man' which is your chosen bench player to use per quarter. This role is important to adding some additional fire power from the bench. You also must declare your 'sixth man' at the beginning of each quarter. Any player that plays the 6th man role, must play at least one quarter on the floor. The 6th man for each team doesn't have out of position penalties, so if a center is against a point guard, it is still a straight up roll.

Double- Teaming

Coaches can choose to double team a hot or star player over the course of the game but it has its downfalls. The player being double teamed will have to face his defender's defensive rating  +4 from the player helping out. Negatives outcomes from the offense vs defense in the advanced game will be applied to the players roll. The player being double teamed will receive a bonus on his assist roll of +4 to his roll as a teammate is now open. The player who was left for the double team, will also receive a +4 to his roll on scoring. 

Buzzer Beater:

A tie game tends to happen at the end of a game I instituted a fun end of game situation. Each team will roll the die, whoever has the higher roll will have the last possession. This is a straight up 1 vs 1 possession, the team with the ball chooses which player they want to have the ball in their hands. The defense also chooses who they want to defend the player with the ball. Positional match-ups will be into effect for this possession. The offense rolls the die, and if they roll a natural 20 or their roll + the offense advantage is equal or greater than 20 they hit a buzzer beater and won the game. If the offense rolls a natural 1, it is a turnover and the team on defense now goes to offense with a chance to win the game and the same scenario plays out as listed above. If the team on offense outcomes doesn't produce a turnover or a buzzer beater, the game is tied and heads to overtime.

Overtime

If the game is tied after regulation and buzzer beater sequences, you play another quarter as normal with no 'sixth man' on the court. Continue this until a team has emerged victorious.

Players Used
Every team must use at minimum 7 players per game that play both offense and defense on the floor. 

Out of Position Defense

In the new NBA Era of position-less basketball this is another form of game-play you can choose to play. In this format you do not need the 5 positions filled each quarter, but you face defensive punishments for players trying to guard someone that is not in their positional abilities. Here is the penalties for each position

Teams don't need all 5 positions, but lineups most consist of at least 2 Guards (PG or SG) and 2 Forwards (SF or PF)

Offense -- Guarded By

PG        -- PG no penalty -- SG +1  SF/PF +2  C+4

SG        -- SG no penalty -- PG +1  SF/PF +2  C+4

SF         -- SF no penalty  -- PF+1   PG/SG +2 C+4

PF         -- PF no penalty    --SF+1    C/SG +2       PG +4

C           -- C no Penalty       --PF+1    SF+2            PG/SG+4

While Using the Rules to the game, I have come up with 3 separate gameplay styles based on how you want to play:

GAMEPLAY STYLES

Pre-Season - Basic rules apply, only 1 roll per player

Regular Season - Advanced rules apply, 3 rolls per player, regular defensive matchups, and no negative roll starts in offense vs defense matchups. Can play 1 Offense or Defensive Scheme Card the whole game.

Playoffs- My favorite way to play, the full advanced rules, 3 rolls per player, NEGATIVE roll starts if the defender is better than the offensive player. Helps lower scoring and make it feel more like a playoff game. Can play 1 Offense or Defensive Scheme Card per quarter and switch them up each quarter.

INTRODUCING SCHEME CARDS

These scheme cards are meant to be played at the beginning of the quarter. It is to represent a teams defensive focus in that particular quarter. Like I said in regular season style play, a team will only be allowed to play one scheme per game. In Playoff style play, the coach can change the scheme each quarter. 

The Rim protector is to protect the defense around him, a defense may funnel and push ball handlers to their rim protector to contest shots. In this situation, your center will lose 4 on his defense in his matchup with the center, but each other defender on your team will receive a +1 to their defense.

Drop coverage is used in pick and roll situations to limit open threes. the on ball defender goes over the screen with the big staying low to force a mid range shot and guard against the roll man. Allows perimeter defenders to stay home for no open catch and shoot threes. Brook Lopez does this coverage very well, and a lot of teams will play this defense in the playoffs. The strategy here is making the ball handler shoot over the top of the defense, and roll man not get the free rolls to the hoop. Great defense to take away the big men in the short rolls. 

If you have a strong ball hawking guard, he can wreck an offense. Picking up full court costs the offense precious time getting set, and may not start running their offense until there is 12 seconds or less on the shot clock, making them press and take bad shots. This card makes guys like Jalen Suggs and Alex Caruso very valuable to your defense.

This is a balancing defensive card. If you have some strong defenders and some weak defenders, in the wrong matchups this card allows you to throw your average defense at every player on the floor. Makes it beneficial to have a couple guys with good defensive ratings to cover up your teams weaknesses. 

Time to take away the biggest threats. You're playing against the Lakers, and you play this card, you take -1 defense from 3 of your defenders, and add +2 to the defender guarding LeBron and +1 to the defender guarding Anthony Davis or vice versa. Trying to make the others beat you while hoping to hold down the two biggest threats.

  

Now its time to take away the teams biggest star. You take -1 from every defender on your team except the guy on the biggest threat, and you add +4 to his defense. This is another way to try and make the other guys have to beat you in a big time game. 

Which defensive scheme would you use with your team?