by David RodriguezIf there’s one thing I know about the NBA and basketball, it’s that there’s a curious amount of dudes named Ja(y)len in the league. If there are two things I know, the second is that it’s a culture in addition to a sport. “Ball is life” is a memeable phrase for a reason. I’m not into basketball in the strict sense, but it orbits so much of what I am into, like hip-hop, where the lyrical references to star players and teams are frequent. One of my favorites is Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest, favorably comparing himself to Muggsy Bogues on the song “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)”.
I am into games with guns though (among other things), so I decided that I needed to try to complete the stereotype of being a ball and gun game player by digging deeper into NBA THE RUN. This 3v3 knockout tournament streetball game evokes a lot of memories of EA’s NBA Street and, for the OGs, NBA Jam. NFL Blitz, too – different ball, same casual setup. It’s playful and creative with the sport, but still massively respectful to the craft. This is the hook that got me interested in this game to begin with: something less committal and serious than NBA 2K or something, but not entirely cartoonishly removed from the reality of basketball like NBA BOUNCE from last year. In short, a fine middle ground.
And just like diving for the ball during the possession phase of a match, it’s a great place to start talking about NBA THE RUN. Its artistic design is uncommon for a sports game. It allows for unique details for each player, like hair and tattoos, with decent fidelity, and yet the stylistic approach lends itself well to the game’s more fantastical side. The side that allows you to jump higher than anyone can in real life, or set the ball on fire with a perfectly timed wrist flick to sink a three-pointer. It’s endearing, but it goes even further than that.
NBA THE RUN cashes in on basketball’s authentic cultural cache. One big way this is achieved is the use of Robert “Bobbito” Garcia AKA Kool Bob Love. He’s a radio show host, music producer, DJ, sneakerhead, author, and one of the biggest fans of basketball and streetball you could find on this planet. He even plays and coaches the game himself! Not only is he New York City royalty, but he’s arguably one of the best people you’d want involved in your game if part of the point was to reflect the culture of the sport, just like NBA Street did before it. That much I do know.
In this game, Bobbito narrates and provides color commentary for each and every match you play. His signature voice comments on your choice of player, counts down the start of a match, and riffs on what’s going well (or badly) in the game. One of my favorite fourth-wall-breaking moments is when someone’s playing Victor Wembanyama and not doing particularly well, Bobbito comments that he’s dominating the league and needs him to do the same in the video game. He’ll work in some light Spanish phrasing, including his signature “donqueoooo,” which is slang for a dunk. Hell, you can even unlock him as a player if you put in the work to rank up enough. He brings so much personality to NBA THE RUN and makes me smile with his quips, which actually make the rest of the game’s areas feel a little lacking. More on that later.
As you play, you really get the sense that basketball is a truly worldwide phenomenon. Maybe you’ve heard of leagues doing their things outside of North America. Places like China and Lithuania are prominent bases for the sport. As such, we have a wide range of real-life places to posterize, from Venice Beach in California to the Philippines in Asia. We even get Bobbito’s home court of Rucker Park in the Bronx, NYC! As often as your locale changes for streetball, the method by which you play changes similarly as well.
NBA THE RUN layers on the replayability and forces you to adapt as a player by hosting a handful of different rulesets. When you matchmake into a tournament either by yourself or with two other people, one of seven courts from around the world is chosen along with a ruleset at random. There’s New School which is a first to 21 points game, or Old School which is first to 11, but any scoring method (dunks, 2s, 3s) only nets you one point. Those are just two examples of many. Some are dunk-focused, others reward you more for using your stat-boosting In The Zone power which is gradually built during a game like a super meter in a fighting game. Each game is different and not all of them will jive with your chosen player either so you better have a good, well-rounded squad laid out with solid offense and defense.
For shooting, there’s a dot directly under your character that shows whether you can make a shot from your current position, green for good and red for bad. There’s a middle orange color, but in my experience, it might as well be red for some players, since I couldn’t sink shots at that range often with who I was playing as. You must also pay attention to your stamina depicted as the colored circumference meter along the same shadow under your player where your shooting dot is. Use it to sprint to a spot on the court, and also to execute advanced techniques like shoving your opponent, ball steals, or blocks on defense. On offense, you can do various tricks to trip up your defending opponents. There’s a parry element to it – if you perform a flashy “ankle breaker” trick while holding the ball when a defender tries to steal from or shove you, you “break” their “ankles” complete with a gnarly sound effect to match.
I got a false sense of comfort with the game because during its open beta, I won the very first tournament I played. My teammates carried me a bit, but it instilled a level of confidence I didn’t expect to have as someone who admittedly doesn’t know the ball very well. Well, let me tell you that, as I write this, I have yet to win a full tournament. The real ball players came out for the launch of this game, which hopefully bodes well for its lifespan. People are getting into it and really showing what they’ve got because, again, ball is life to many. Even losing often, it’s fun, competitive, but not to a fault.
I played mostly as Giannis Antetokounmpo. Why? Cool name, great stats. With little in the way of deep ball knowledge, I’m forced to treat this like most other games: who looks the coolest or like they can kick the most ass? So, shout-out to Giannis, who wins my totally official MCP (Most Cool Player) award. With him, dunks were second nature. I found myself able to pitch a tent near the basket of most of my opponents and just wait for a pass to come my way before re-enacting Space Jam on everyone’s asses. You can pass off the backboard of the hoop as well for an easy alley-oop if one of your teammates is in prime positioning (and timing). This is especially handy for the ruleset that gives you a whopping three points for alley-oops.
Thinking about all the moves and tricks you can do brings to mind how complicated it can get. Doing basic stuff isn’t too bad – shooting and passing are mapped to one button each for instance – but you really do have to take time to learn and master some more advanced stuff to stand a chance. The controls vary considerably as a ballhandler, offense, and defense so it gets to be a lot. I don’t play other sports games and I’m sure what’s expected out of you on NBA THE RUN pales in comparison to a sim title like NBA 2K or FC/FIFA, so consider this the rookie opinion. It’s just a bit tough to keep it all in your head. Practice is key, but the unfortunate part about that is it’s mostly only feasible to adequately practice in live matches online.
The totally solo Shootaround mode is cool, kind of analogous to a fighting game’s training mode. You can practice your dunks and other offensive moves as a ballhandler, but that’s about it. There are no bots to play D against you; you can’t give one the ball to practice your own D on. It’s very barebones. You can play the Knockout Friends mode by yourself with bots, but it’s still a live match, so the methods to practice are limited. Even worse is that you can’t play either of these modes offline – NBA THE RUN requires a connection to its servers at all times, including to launch the game. In 2026, that’s definitely a choice and not a great one. The server even failed at the very end of a solo tournament, and I didn’t get the win added to my total after I signed back in!
Music is nice, an original affair that’s based in the tenets of hip-hop from its lo-fi, easier listening components to more drum-driven and driving affairs. Of course, I would have loved to hear some licensed music in NBA THE RUN, but I understand that’s a very complicated (and expensive) endeavor, especially for a smaller dev team like Play by Play Studios. Still, imagine hearing “TV Off” by Kendrick Lamar or “Ante Up” by M.O.P. while bouncing the ball off an opponent’s forehead to get them off you so you can shoot a three. For now, I’ll just have Tidal up on my computer when the need arises.
I have some other qualms about the game, some more serious than others. I wish you could see the stats of players before you buy them. Since I don’t know the archetypes or talents of pretty much any of these players, how can I know which players would suit my playstyle before buying them? Let us make informed decisions! Thankfully, no real money has to be spent – you earn in-game money by simply playing matches, but it is a grind. Speaking of players, a more traditional player select screen that shows all available players at once would be nice. I mean, not that I would know many of these players from their faces and heads, but to be able to see them all at once along a grid or table would ease selection.
With no true single player content, I can’t help but think that something like a “world tour” championship mode to go through solo or co-op would be a great addition. Take a pro, play a tournament on every court with increasing difficulty and see if you can beat them all. Something, anything, like that. Perhaps my biggest complaint is the fact that after you matchmake with a squad and the match ends, you stay in the squad with them when you go to the main menu. This is honestly unheard of. I don’t know of any other online multiplayer game that does this by default with strangers, but worse yet is there’s no toggle or option to turn that off, you just have to leave the squad manually after every game. Mind boggling, honestly. Please add this in an update!
Thanks to a masterful, synergistic partnership on launch night with my pal, who knows more ball than I, Danreb, I secured my first real win. In the strict sense, I “beat the game,” and yet I still want more after playing over 50 matches. I’d like to find my niche and identify which players best fit my playstyle. I want to see my rank increase and solidify my fundamentals. Maybe one day I’ll unlock Bobbito as a player which takes until rank 45 to unlock. It’s easy to want to invest more time into NBA THE RUN thanks to the care and attention paid to the sport and culture behind the ball. The game is fun, respectful to basketball’s status in the world, and is mostly structurally sound – there’s just not much meat to it even for $30. I hope Play by Play has the opportunity to invest further. Seeing the game expand would be to its benefit, adding older players for the OGs out there, maybe a couple of new rulesets if they can think of new ways to make basketball feel different.
NBA THE RUN is a classic instance of style over substance, but that’s not to say it’s totally bereft of the latter. There’s a lot of game to wrap your palm around, it’s just stuck behind the same online infrastructure that so many other games are. Generally, it’s fine, and Play By Play have such a good opportunity to fill it out more with a solid launch and attentive follow-up to make these issues worth the trouble. I’ll return to it as much as I want, but I’ll need to see the value and reasoning for doing so.
NBA THE RUN
