When I last talked about NBA 2K23, there was a negativity to the article that was driven by my frustration with corporate greed. That being said, I do genuinely think NBA 2K23 has some amazing gameplay that is littered with highlight moments and flair that showcases how good 2K can be at mimicking the feel and look of many of today’s (and yesterday’s) stars. There is also a vast amount of NBA 2K23 content creators out there who are all providing a variety of services, tips, and tricks that are meant to help folks out there with the game. However, I think the “guides” that are usually out there relate to either MyTeam or MyCareer. With MyCareer, it’s stuff like “what shot is easiest to green” or “use this build to own” and so on. With MyTeam, it’s showcasing what players to buy or avoid, what badges are important, or how to finish up objectives in a timely fashion. All that stuff is great, but I wanted to highlight Kevin Cruz and the NBA 2K23 tutorial work he’s doing because I think it’s more in line with stuff this community would appreciate.
He has a wide variety of tutorials out for NBA 2K23 at this point, but what’s nice is he’ll showcase powerful dribble moves and such that you can use in MyCareer, but he’s also very much into showcasing signature packages that highlight how to make guys like Tatum or Kobe look like how they would actually play. After all, a big part of NBA 2K23 is just how many signature animations are in this game — and how many are either never discussed or not that easy to trigger.
With that in mind, I want to take you through a couple of his tutorials that I really like this year, and I just want to put Kevin Cruz on your radar if you’re looking for someone to watch on YouTube.
Kevin Cruz’s NBA 2K23 Tutorials
Jayson Tatum Signature Side-Step Jumper
Starting with something in the “simple” category, this Tatum video is a good introduction into the world of signature jumpers. It’s not just that the regular jumpers are captured by NBA 2K, it’s now been a trend for years to get the gather jumpers, faders, and other shots of stars into the game as well. Tatum is on the rise after the Celtics pushed to the NBA Finals last season, and he’s also someone who has a very recognizable signature jumper sequence.
On top of that, doing his side-step jumper is not all that hard, so it’s good to watch something like this so you know that not everything in NBA 2K23 is hard to pull off if you want to play like some of the stars you watch all year.
James Harden’s Signature Dribble Moves And Step-Back Jumpers
This video is another good one (there’s also a more recent Kyrie video), and what I like about this one is it incorporates the signature style of James Harden while also explaining how dribbling has changed in NBA 2K23. I do think the dribbling upgrades this year have been really good, and Kevin goes into detail about how pace and flow matter. When to interrupt animations, how to interrupt animations, and how to show patience during animation sequences all matter.
While getting that lesson, you still get to see how much effort 2K put into making James Harden really play like James Harden in the right hands. This tutorial is a step up from the Tatum one in terms of difficulty, but I think overall it’s not too hard to mimic most of what you see here after getting some practice.
NBA 2K23 Post Moves Tutorial
While the post game is not alive and well in the real NBA (for understandable reasons), it’s not dead either. That said, the post game can be truly deadly in NBA 2K23, and that’s why this two-part tutorial is worth watching (here is part one). Kevin goes over more of the basics in part one before running through moves in part two, but the point here is to show how evil and varied the post game can be in this game. So much of the time, the post game for people does not go beyond getting a mismatch and then just trying to drop step for two points.
However, if you take just a bit of time to get in the lab, you should quickly realize how fun and evil some go-to post moves can be. And with the post game this year, you don’t really need to go into a one-on-one situation with your mind made up. By learning a couple moves and counter moves from these tutorials, you can become a problem for a lot of opponents in short order. After spending time in the lab, I think my favorite thing I snagged from these videos was how to attack the middle from the triple threat before going back to a variety of shots and fakes back towards the baseline.
NBA 2K23 Hesi Launch Tutorial
The last NBA 2K23 tutorial I want to showcase from Kevin is the hesitation launch tutorial. This one encompasses a lot of what I like about his general tutorials in that he gives you something “easy” to latch onto in terms of a move you can quickly learn and use as a starting point. In this case, learning how to do this hesitation launch “size-up” dribble is very basic, but learning it opens up so much right away. You can use it to size-up a defender, or you can use it to pace yourself going into a pick-and-roll situation so you don’t commit right away.
But from there, Kevin explains how it can be used to transfer into a crossover, or step-back jumper, or how you can simply use it to start a chain of dribble moves that keep defenders guessing. Because, in reality, a lot of this stuff is just meant to keep your defender off-balance. It’s not about using one move every time down the court, it’s about opening your eyes to the possibilities that you don’t need a go-to move. You need a way to open your mind and give your hands a chance to read the situation — and then have the muscle memory to react accordingly. If you can start making defenders make the first move, you can start opening up that bag of tricks to attack from there.
