Rim Run

Keyboard and mouse

Layout follows NBA 2K on a controller: left stick moves, right stick is the Pro Stick, RT sprint, LT post up or defensive stance, X shoot, A pass, B bounce pass, Y lob, RB icon pass, LB call for a screen
Pro Stick flick push and let go for a dribble move. Your player turns to face the basket first, and up always means toward it. With the ball in the right hand (mirrored in the left): up size-up, up-right in-and-out, right hesitation, up-left crossover, left between the legs, down-left behind the back, down stepback, down-right sidestep
With RT held the same flicks go somewhere: up breakdown and go, right hesitation escape, up-left attacking crossover, left escape crossover, down-left behind-the-back escape
Spin roll the Pro Stick round; a quarter roll is a half spin. On a keyboard, C spins and Shift with C half spins
Speed burst tap RT on the drive
Combos flick again before a move has finished and the next one follows straight out of it, up to four in a row
Triple threat before you have dribbled: right jab step, up-right big jab, up or left stepover, down pump fake; RT with a flick is a first step that way, RT with down a stepback
Inbounds after a basket or a whistle you throw the ball in: A, B or Y, or pick a teammate. It goes in by itself after a few seconds
Pro Stick hold down to shoot, letting go to release. On a drive: up for a layup or dunk, left or right for a eurostep, back and to a side for a hop gather
Shoot hold, and let go the moment the meter is full. That is an excellent release, and an excellent release always goes in unless it is blocked. Tap it standing for a pump fake
Hop step tap Shoot once on the drive; then shoot or pass, the dribble is used up
Eurostep tap Shoot twice on the drive. The move stick picks the side; left alone it goes to the off hand. With Sprint held it is a spin gather
Double clutch in the air on a layup, press Shoot again or move the Pro Stick
Layup or dunk Shoot while driving at the rim; Sprint to dunk
Post up hold LT inside six metres, then Shoot for a hook
Icon pass hold RB and press A B X Y, or number keys 1 to 5 by position
Lob and alley-oop Y (Space on a keyboard), to a cutter near the rim
Online, same team you stay on one player. Without the ball, the Pass button asks a computer team-mate for it
On defence LT is the stance, X steals, Y blocks and rebounds, A switches to the team-mate nearest the ball (press again to move on to the next), number keys 1 to 5 take that position, RB with a face button takes that teammate, the right stick puts a hand up
Practice spots keys 1 to 6 in Freestyle

What is in the game

Four ways to play Freestyle, 1 on 1, 3 on 3, 5 on 5, and a tutorial
Twelve teams pick yours and the one you play under Teams. If two kits are too alike, the second team wears white
Online pick a username, add friends, and invite one to a game of 3 on 3: against each other, each with two computer team-mates, or on the same team. Both computers run the whole game and only send each other button presses, so nothing about the ball or the score can be faked from one side
Controls the NBA 2K layout on a controller: Pro Stick flicks and holds, tap and double-tap Shoot for the hop step and eurostep, icon passing. Keyboard, mouse and touch go through the same actions and can be remapped
Dribbling size-ups, crossover, in-and-out, hesitation, between the legs, behind the back, stepback, sidestep, spin and half spin, escapes, speed burst, jab steps and stepovers. Your player squares up to the basket for every one, so left is always left
Passing chest, bounce, lob and alley-oop, thrown to where the receiver is going and caught without you steering him
Computer players press the same buttons you do: spacing, cuts, ball screens, help defence, closeouts, box-outs
Rules game and shot clocks, inbounds, out of bounds, backcourt, eight and three seconds, goaltending, fouls and free throws, overtime
Commentary a play-by-play voice and an analyst, about 1,100 recorded lines between them, called from what actually happens on the floor. Each team's lines load when that team plays
Sound the ball, rim, glass, net, shoes, whistle, horn and crowd, played in a simulated arena
Arena two bowls of seats with about nine thousand spectators, a light rig, a centre-hung video board, and a lacquered floor that reflects the players

Where it comes from

Player model mesh, skeleton and textures from the Microsoft Rocketbox avatar library (MIT licence, © Microsoft), posed every frame by the game's own inverse kinematics
Voices generated ahead of time with the Kokoro speech model (Apache 2.0). They are synthetic voices, not recordings of people
Sound effects built from public-domain (CC0) recordings of impacts, footsteps, swishes and claps, tuned and layered into basketball sounds. The shoe squeak, whistle and horn are modelled, and the crowd is several hundred layered voices. None of it was recorded at a real game

What it does not do

The arena and crowd are generated in code, and the spectators are simple shapes
Every player shares one body and face, varied by height, build, skin tone, hair and kit. Motion is solved from poses and physics, not motion-captured
Commentators call players by surname only and do not read the score aloud. Every player on every roster is invented, including on Team LeBron and Team Steph: no real player appears in the game
No travelling, double dribble or carry calls, no jump ball, timeouts or substitutions
From 2K's controls: no take charge, double team, D-pad play calling, or per-player signature animations
Replays show the last few seconds from one camera, and are off in online games
Online is two players, 3 on 3 only. If the connection between you drops, the computer takes over the other seat and you play on. There is no ranking, chat or matchmaking with strangers
Your username is kept on the game server with a random sign-in code saved in this browser. There are no passwords or email addresses