Tag Archives: NBA Finals

If you’ve subscribed to the NLSC YouTube channel, then you may have already seen this week’s instalment of the NBA 2K14 Retro Series. If not, you’re in for a radical treat, as it’s a re-creation of Game 4 of the 1991 NBA Finals between Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers!

Why Game 4 of the 1991 NBA Finals in particular? Well, I originally intended it to be the title-clinching Game 5, but I neglected to make some necessary adjustments to the Lakers’ lineup to accurately portray that contest. Obviously, these highlights would still work as a re-imagining of a non-specific clash from that Finals series, but I decided to make it Game 4 as it lines up with MJ doing it all at the offensive end in that game, from pouring in buckets to racking up assists. Indeed, he dished out more assists than Magic in Game 4, and his final line of 29 points and 12 assists is very close to the actual box score. Check it out!

As always, there’ll be more fun on the way very soon, so be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content! Remember that Dee and I are also open to suggestions for games that you’d like to see us play, so feel free to hit us up. Also be sure to submit your best plays to Dee to be featured in the weekly Top 10 countdown!

The NBA 2K14 Retro Series was put on hold when my old desktop crashed late last year, putting a halt to my video production. However, I’m back in business with a new rig, which means the fun can now continue! In the most recent entry in the NBA 2K14 Retro Series, I flashed back to 2008 with an overtime thriller between the Nuggets and Magic. We’re staying in that season as the first instalment for 2024 is a re-creation of Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.

As you may recall, the Celtics entered Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals up 3-2, following the Lakers’ win in Game 5 to stave off elimination. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen – aka The Boston Three Party – were determined to finish the job at home and deliver the Celtics their seventeenth championship. Easier said than done with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol standing in your way! It was a great series that revived the NBA’s most legendary rivalry, and it was fun to put the teams together to re-create the showdown in NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4. See how it played out, and keep your eyes peeled for an all-time classic NBA commercial during the halftime break!

Stay tuned for the next instalment, coming soon! As always, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

Merry Christmas and Season’s Greetings, basketball gamers! I hope that you’re all enjoying the festive season. That might include spending some time on the virtual hardwood, and indeed, that’s what Dee and I have been doing, playing a Christmas Day showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors in NBA Live 16!

As you may recall, Christmas Day 2015 featured that NBA Finals rematch, and the special jerseys that were worn in that game are available in NBA Live 16. To that end, it only made sense to take control of the eventual champion Cavs in co-op play, and try to gain some revenge over the team that defeated them just a few months prior. It was a competitive battle with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving doing their thing, while the Splash Brothers gave us everything they had at the other end. It reminded us of how fun NBA Live 16 can be, and you’ll find the highlights below.

You can also look forward to our recap of the game in Episode #508 of the NLSC Podcast, which will be out soon. Prior to our most recent show, Dee also fired up NBA 2K24 PC with some NBA In-Season Tournament mods installed, and played the finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers. On top of that, I’ve put together a highlight reel from Games 21-30 in Year 6 of my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER on PlayStation 4. Both of those videos can also be found below.

It’s been a great year of producing basketball gaming content for the NLSC YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already! As always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play. Once again, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and best wishes to you and your family!

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Today’s NBA 2K23 mod releases are timely updates for the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat, adding an NBA Finals patch to their jerseys. Download the latest release from pinoy21 at the link below!

pinoy21
NBA Finals Jersey Pack – Nuggets & Heat (pinoy21)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #479 of the NLSC Podcast!

With some big stories and events in the NBA right now, our attention turns to real hoops this week! From the Denver Nuggets making their very first NBA Finals, to Carmelo Anthony announcing his retirement, to the latest sad and bitter tirade from Scottie Pippen, we’ve got some thoughts to share. Speaking of real basketball, we also join the community in talking about the pre-game rituals and inspirational material that gets us pumped up to play pick-up and league games. As for the virtual hardwood, we discuss a false narrative regarding the style of NBA Live and NBA 2K during the 2000s, and shout out some excellent content creators in the community. In this week’s mailbag, we’re taking a look back at the Overall Ratings of the top seven active players in ESPN NBA 2K5.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:18 — 45.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

Dee and I have discussed the NBA Jam: Legends On Fire Edition mod for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition at length on the NLSC Podcast, and we’ve also had johnz1 on the show to discuss the project. It’s something that we’ve been waiting for years to see, and we’ve had a blast connecting on Parsec to play with it! Recently, we used the mod to replay the 1993 NBA Finals matchup of the Chicago Bulls vs. the Phoenix Suns.

With Dee as the host and controlling Scottie Pippen, I took control of Michael Jordan as we battled Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson. Even with our experience playing co-op together and the skill of MJ and Pip, Sir Charles and KJ proved to be an extremely challenging matchup. Needless to say, Dee recorded our arcade take on the 1993 NBA Finals, and put together another fantastic highlight reel for the NLSC YouTube channel!

We’re consistently uploading great basketball gaming videos to our YouTube channel these days, an initiative that Dee has been spearheading with gameplay reels for a multitude of hoops titles, not to mention the weekly Top 10. I’ve also posted a couple of video retrospectives for Wayback Wednesday recently, including NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, so be sure to subscribe for more virtual hardwood fun!

Next up in my March Modness 2023 releases is a 2022 NBA Playoffs & Finals logo update for NBA Live 2005-08! Coming into this year’s March Modness, I had a goal of trying to release a mod every day. So far, so good! I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it up – especially as I turn my attention to larger projects – but I’ll certainly try.

So, what’s the background here? Up until 2009, I was mostly just a roster maker. Faces, jerseys, courts, and so on weren’t my forte, and many of my attempts to dabble with them came up short (to put it nicely). However, when I found myself in need of a new Philadelphia 76ers logo update for the 2010 season, I decided to try my hand at making one. Flat textures proved to be much easier to work with, and it turned out quite well. From then on, I kept the logos up to date for my current season roster mods.

Thanks to an identical file format for the NBA Playoffs and Finals logos in NBA Live 2005-08, it didn’t take long to put together this 2022 update. I’ll probably create 2018 and 2019-2021 updates as well, to go along with my old update that covers the 2010-2017 seasons. As I work on some other retro updates, I expect I’ll look at making Playoffs and Finals logos mods for older seasons, too.

Download the logo update here! Once again, links to my NBA Live 2005-08 mod release and support topics can be found in my NLSC Forum signature. Stay tuned throughout the month for more March Modness releases!

In 2007, the NBA was buzzing about the possibility of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant teaming up, when the latter was demanding a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers. Of course, Kobe stuck around, the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol, and together they won two titles in three NBA Finals appearances. Unfortunately for fans who were hoping to see two of the league’s biggest stars clash, we never got to see LeBron vs. Kobe in the Finals.

Funnily enough, Kobe and LeBron have teamed up in my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER; a story that I’ll be getting to in a video next week. While capturing some footage for that feature, I decided to play out a LeBron vs. Kobe NBA Finals matchup in NBA Live 10. I opted to use Kobe and the Lakers, and it was a fun challenge to mount a comeback after LeBron and the Cavs stormed out to an early lead. Kobe was still at the top of his game in 2010, and while I obviously tried to share the ball around, it was tough not to just give it to the Mamba and demand everyone else get out of the way! Enjoy the highlights from this “What If” NBA Finals showdown.

Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more video content from Dee and I, and stay tuned for the next instalment in my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER Stories series!

Although I’ve chiefly kept NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 in my gaming rotation because I’m enjoying an ongoing MyCAREER, it’s not the only thing I’m doing with the game. If you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel or follow us on social media, you may be aware of my NBA 2K14 Retro Series.

In short, the NBA 2K14 Retro Series is a journey through NBA history, using NBA 2K14 PS4. On top of playing various matchups with the game’s selection of classic teams, I’m adding effects in post-production to capture the aesthetic of their respective eras.

First up, there’s a showdown between two bitter rivals, the ’89 Bulls and ’89 Pistons. In addition to the filter, you’ll also see some VHS tracking, as you might if you were re-watching the game on an often-played and well-worn tape. Next, there’s the ’65 Lakers and ’65 Celtics squaring off, in glorious black and white with some era-appropriate audio and visual effects!

After that, I got a little creative and used the ’95 Magic and ’94 Rockets to play a November 1994 matchup between the two future 1995 NBA Finalists. My most recent entry in the series is a matchup between the ’86 Hawks and ’86 Celtics, as Dominique Wilkins duels Larry Bird in the old Boston Garden. Along the way, you’ll notice a few other touches to take you back to the year in question.

Check out the first four games in the NBA 2K14 Retro Series below! Stay tuned for more classic matchups using NBA 2K14 PS4, and feel free to throw out some suggestions for other historical showdowns you’d like to see. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content.

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is reflecting on five weird outcomes in my various franchise and career games over the years.

There are many ways to play franchise modes in basketball video games. I’ve always preferred a more straightforward approach: take control of a team with current rosters, leave injuries and CPU trades on (assuming they’re optional), and play through the season to create my own reality. While this may be more conventional than a fantasy draft or using a heavily customised roster, it’s not immune to weird outcomes. Sim engines are prone to producing unexpected results, from season standings and Playoff outcomes to weird league leaders. Obviously, this happens in career modes as well.

Of course, when we’re talking about realism and weird outcomes with sim engines, it isn’t easy to define what that actually means. Results and player movement may not reflect reality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re unrealistic in nature. In real life, we do see puzzling trades, bewildering awards and All-Star snubs, and teams that are surprisingly better or worse than expected. Some outcomes are unlikely, but weird things do happen practically every year in the NBA. With that being said, sim engines do produce some illogical and weird outcomes that are unrealistic and highly unlikely given the circumstances. Here are five examples that I’ve encountered.

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at some NBA memories through eleven historical screenshots in NBA 2K14.

When I was capturing screenshots for the feature re-creating NBA Finals matchups with the classic teams in NBA 2K14, I ended up replicating some other scenarios as well. As I said in last week’s feature, for me a big part of being on a retro basketball gaming kick is to get as much as I can out of the game, including messing around with rosters, classics teams, and whatnot. Once again, even though there are problems with the accuracy of the retro squads, I still enjoy putting them out there on the virtual hardwood, and playing out some historical matchups.

Originally, these were going to be bonus screenshots in last week’s feature. With twenty-nine NBA Finals series being represented however, including these screens as well would’ve made it an even longer article. To that point, I’m spinning them off into their own feature, as I had a blast getting these historical screenshots in NBA 2K14, and want to share them with everyone as I reminisce about league history. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the NBA Finals series that can be portrayed by NBA 2K14 on PlayStation 4.

The time I’ve spent with the PlayStation 4 version of NBA 2K14 is one of the longest retro basketball gaming kicks I’ve ever been on. It’s been extremely rewarding to play through four full seasons in MyCAREER, leaving me with a save file jam packed with memories that I can pick up again whenever the mood strikes. I also played a number of exhibition games with retro teams and then-current 2014 rosters alike. In short, I was making up for not spending that much time with NBA 2K14 when it was released almost ten years ago.

Much like my extended NBA Live 10 kick in 2021, I’ve felt inspired to continue to explore NBA 2K14 through some Wayback Wednesday features. Today, it’s a look at all of the NBA Finals series that can be portrayed through NBA 2K14 screenshots. As with my features looking back at the players in NBA Live 10 whose rookie jerseys were included as retros, as well as the makeshift classic teams that could be created and using it to reflect on “What If” scenarios, it was an interesting challenge to see just how many NBA Finals series I could represent using NBA 2K14. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with a look at the worst virtual NBA Finalists that I’ve encountered in all my years of basketball gaming.

Simulation engines are far from infallible. They already have a tough task as far as generating realistic results, given that the actual NBA can produce some unexpected outcomes. However, some of the results we see in our virtual seasons are definitely unrealistically favourable to upsets and underdogs. It makes me wonder about the articles that simulate the forthcoming season in NBA 2K. Did they run with the first simulation, or did they have to keep trying until the game produced more believable results, with realistic NBA Finalists and Champions?

Having finished seasons in multiple games, I’ve encountered a variety of virtual NBA Finalists, including a few surprising ones. The Minnesota Timberwolves in Year 3 of my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER would definitely qualify as such a squad. Indeed, when I mentioned to Dee4Three that they were my opponent, and sent him a screenshot of their roster, he observed that they were a strong candidate for the worst team to ever make the NBA Finals. Dee suggested that they merited a closer look in an article, and I liked the idea; especially as it got me thinking about some of the other virtual NBA Finalists I’ve faced in games, and whether any were as weak as those Timberwolves.

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five cover players that made the NBA Finals in the same season their game came out.

The 2022 NBA Finals are upon us! Fittingly, in this 75th Anniversary season, the two teams squaring off are the Golden State Warriors, and the Boston Celtics. Not only are they two of the original three BAA/NBA teams – the New York Knicks being the third – but the Warriors and Celtics have plenty of championship history between them. The Warriors were the inaugural BAA champions, and have gone on to win another five titles since. Boston, meanwhile, were long-time record holders for total NBA championships, and are currently tied with the Los Angeles Lakers with 17.

While there’s plenty of real life history involved with this year’s Finals matchup, it is lacking a tie-in with the virtual hardwood, namely involving cover players. There was only one game on the market for the 2022 season – NBA 2K22 – and while it boasted a few different covers, none of them featured a player that will be competing in this year’s championship series. Popularity and marketability are obviously the deciding factors when EA Sports and Visual Concepts choose their cover players, rather than likelihood of winning or at least competing for a title that year. Of course, it’s quite fortuitous when they do! Here are five cover players that made it as far as the Finals.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #428 of the NLSC Podcast!

We had a lot of fun revisiting NBA Live 06 PC recently, using the last NLSC roster to play with the Dream Team and updated Decade All-Stars. We did spy a couple of oversights though, leading to the temptation to pick up the old tools and fix them. Indeed, the lure to mod old favourites remains strong! Some recent events prompt us to comment on one of our pet peeves: bewildering Dislikes on YouTube videos. Rumours of a possible sale or merger for EA have been making the rounds, so we weigh in with our thoughts on the situation. We also catch up on the latest from the 1995 MyLEAGUE in NBA 2K19, and reflect on the immersive nature of retro season mods. Meanwhile, NBA 2K14 MyCAREER has produced the worst virtual NBA Finalists either of us have ever encountered.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:17:57 — 53.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!