NBA 2K24 - Shot Release Timing Explanation

With NBA 2K24, the pastime of changing the wording around shot timing/shot release is upon us once more as 2K seems to tinker with this in one way or another on a yearly basis. What was “very early, early, late, and very late” last year has now been changed over to “jump, set, push, and release.” However, there is a bit more to it than just that, which we’ll get to as well.

Many jumpers in the game this year are faster than last year, but independent of that, you’re going to want to make sure you have settings you’re comfortable with here. What will complicate things for you is it’s not strictly timing-based, you have to look at each jumper and decipher things from there. In other words, each part of the jumper is now a “timing” point and that’s what the settings are describing.

A good explanation in visual form comes from NBA 2K Tutes over on YouTube. They analyze Steph’s jumper to explain the new system for this year.

If you just want the simplest explanation, below is the raw comparison for what you should pick based on your settings last year. But, again, it’s not going to be one-to-one for how this works if you compare it to NBA 2K23. Think of this more as the setting you should pick to start in NBA 2K24 and then lab and see if it feels close to your settings last year — using multiple players to run the test — and then tweak the settings from there if you need to.

NBA 2K23 Vs. NBA 2K24

• Very Early = Jump
• Early = Set Point
• Late = Push
• Very Late = Release

To go deeper into the NBA 2K24 explanation now:

• Jump -Times up with a couple frames after your player leaves the ground to start their jumper
• Set Point -Times up with just as your player reaches the peak of their jump
• Push – Times up with a couple frames after you start moving the ball towards the rim for your actual release
• Release – Times up with somewhere between when you leave the floor to shoot and reach the apex of your jump/set point

In theory, this system should be more consistent from player to player than last year’s settings because the visual cues for the players don’t change. You do have to learn the players, but if 2K did their job right and marked off the proper shot timing spots on all the jumpers, you’ll get comfortable with players at a quicker pace than last year when it was just about timing a lot of the time rather than understanding the visual cues as well.

That said, it also means you’re going to be holding the button way longer/shorter for some players than others depending on when they get to each point on their jumper, so you really will have to get to the know the league if you like playing with lots of teams, or you may need to adjust your timing if you switch your jumper around in MyPlayer.

(PS, as usual 2K does give you a boost of 20% to your green window if you turn off the meter in you visual settings. You might not want to start with the meter off but just know that the shooting bonus does still exist this year with the meter off.)