The dribble goes somewhere: ball handlers attack, and their defenders have to follow

basketball.casa is a basketball league where every game is simulated. Nobody scripts the plays. Each one comes out of who the players are at that moment: how tall, fast and tired they are, what they can see, and what they decide. You can watch any game back exactly as it happened. This update is about the player with the ball, and what a dribble is for.

A dribble that goes somewhere

Until now a ball handler who kept the ball dribbled in place. They weighed their options, then stood and bounced the ball until the next decision. Real ball handlers rarely do that: a dribble is a step toward the basket, a probe of the defence, a way to make a defender move. Now, each time a ball handler keeps the ball, they pick a spot to dribble to, weighed the same way their teammates weigh where to stand, and go there at the speed their own legs allow. About two dribbles in three now move, by a median of about a metre and a half. Waiting is still a choice, and some players make it.

Defenders have to follow

A defender used to sit at arm's length from a ball handler who never went anywhere. Now the handler moves, and their defender has to move with them, as quickly as their own reactions let them. That costs the ball handler something too. A defender within reach of a moving ball gets more chances at it, and steals off the dribble rose by about two fifths in our test games. Passing changed with it: handlers who can create their own space pass a little less, and fewer of their passes are picked off.

Out of the driver's way

When a teammate is about to drive, the players without the ball now keep out of their path instead of drifting into it. Moments where two attackers ended up inside each other fell by more than a quarter, so a drive reads as a drive, with room to see it happen.

Still the same game

Over 48 test games the pace held where it was. Scoring rose a little and turnovers fell, both from the plays above, not from a setting turned to get them. Every number still comes from the players, one decision at a time.