In 2K21, Miami Heat - Milwaukee Bucks 145-134 (74-69 at half-time).
Despite a string first quarter (37-21) and a 20 points lead at the beginning of the second (43-23), Milwaukee came back into the game with some great plays on both ends, scoring 48 throughout the second quarter. Going into the third, the Bucks kept very close (most of the time within 5 points), but thanks to some great contributions off the bench (especially from Kendrick Nunn), I managed to maintain the lead and later on to add to it. The star of the game was by far Miami's big man Bam Adebayo: 41 points, 14 rebounds, 4 steals, 4 blocks in 41 minutes. Víctor Oladipo added 21 pts, 6 reb, 9 ast, Kendrick Nunn (despite playing only 17 minutes) poured 21 pts and 9 dimes, Trevor Ariza executed the pick-and-roll brilliantly and finished with 20 pts, while low-key old man Dragic (off the bench) had 4 pts and 11 assists in 23 minutes. Jimmy Butler, the core of this team, had a decent showing overall (16 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast in 25 minutes), but he fouled out 4 minutes before the end.
One of my favourite stats in basketball has to be the +/-. Checking this column at the end of the game I was somewhat surprised to see Miami's veteran Andre Iguodala (36 yo), at the very top - in 18 minutes played he amassed a +21, despite an underwhelming stat line (0/3 FG, 1 point, 5 reb, 4 ast, 1 steal, 1 block). This plus-minus is a metric based on the box score to calculate a player's contribution to the team's score when he is on the court. In this case, Miami outscored Milwaukee by 21 points with Iguodala on the court. By comparison, Adebayo finished with - 7 (although being named player of the game), whereas Kendrick Nunn had a +18. Plus-minus goes to show you how effective certain lineups/rotations are.
All in all, a good win, I'm happy with the shooting (64% FG, 32% 3-PT, 88% FT), inside play (scored 106 in the paint against what was supposed to be a solid interior defense), excellent passing (46 assists). Not happy with the amount of fouls or turnovers.
I have to say, the AI in All-Star difficulty can be ridiculous at times, making shots from pretty much anywhere on the floor, intercepting passes, sliding/flying to the basket, double-teaming and locking down the perimeter, making threes at a higher clip than ever before. My main gripe though? The number of field goal attempts, not so much threes, but twos. In a 48-minutes game (same as in real life) the opponents will always surpass the 90 attempts mark, often go past 100. In this Miami - Milwaukee game, I had 92 attempts (which is decent enough I'd say), while the CPU had 111. To put things into perspective, in real-life NBA (this last regular season) Memphis led all teams with 92 attempts/game, closely followed by Milwaukee (91.8), while Miami (heh) was at the bottom with 84. The average for the league is 88.4. This can indicate two things in 2K21: either the player sets a fast pace (think of a run-and-gun Phoenix type of play) or the AI's tendencies are broken. Sometimes I miss the 2K14 days... Now that was a balanced, fun game.
Also, I really miss the good, old Dwyane Wade Miami days.