Chapter 02
Pokéjam Controls
Ten inputs cover the whole game. The interesting part is not the key map but the meter: how wide your perfect window is, how much a hand in your face costs, and what a late release actually does to your odds.
Keyboard
Click once inside the frame before you start. Until the game has focus the arrow keys scroll the page instead of moving your team, which is the most common reason a first possession feels broken.
| Action | Keys | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Move | WASD or arrows | Left stick on a gamepad; the on-screen stick on a phone. |
| Shoot / block | J or Space | Hold to charge, release inside the green band. |
| Dunk | Shift + shoot | Only inside dunk range; it ignores the meter. |
| Pass / switch | K | With the ball it passes; without it, it switches defender. |
| Alley-oop | Shift + pass | Throws it up for a teammate cutting to the rim. |
| Steal | L | A timed swipe, with a cooldown between attempts. |
| Shove | Shift + steal | The contact move — type matchups decide the result. |
| Turbo | Shift | Costs stamina; also the modifier for dunks and alley-oops. |
| Special | I or E | Needs a full bar. Every type has its own move. |
| Pause | P or Esc | Also opens the settings menu mid-game. |
Gamepad and touch
A connected controller is picked up automatically; the button letters are the same ones the game shows on its own prompts. On a phone the game draws a virtual stick on the left and the action buttons on the right, and the layout scales with the screen.
| Action | Button |
|---|---|
| Move | Left stick |
| Shoot / block | X |
| Pass / switch | A |
| Steal | B |
| Special | Y |
| Turbo | Any bumper or trigger |
How wide is the green band?
The band is not a fixed size. It is built from the shooter's rating, then multiplied by the difficulty and by whether the player is on fire:
window = (0.022 + shooting/100 * 0.034)
* difficulty
* 1.7 if on fireThe difficulty multiplier is the number that changes most between levels: 1.9 on Rookie, 1.35 on Pro, 1.1 on All-Star and 0.85 on Legend. Below All-Star there is also a shooting assist that widens the player's window a little more.
| Shooting | Window | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 3.9% | Rim runners and projects: expect to miss greens. |
| 65 | 4.4% | Playable, but only from a clean look. |
| 75 | 4.8% | Comfortable. This is the working range for a starter. |
| 85 | 5.1% | Comfortable. This is the working range for a starter. |
| 90 | 5.3% | A genuine shooter: the band forgives a sloppy release. |
| 99 | 5.6% | A genuine shooter: the band forgives a sloppy release. |
A 99 shooter's window is only about 40% wider than a 50 shooter's. The rating helps, but timing is the larger term — which is why a well-timed shot from an average shooter beats a mistimed one from a star.
What a release is actually worth
The game grades your release against that window and then rolls the shot. The four grades are not cosmetic labels; each one uses a different formula.
| Grade | Timing | What the game does |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect | within 1× the band | The shot is rolled at 94% from two and 86% from three before contest. |
| Good | up to 2.3× the band | Base make chance against the contest, plus six points. |
| Early / late | up to 4.5× the band | Base chance times the contest, then reduced by 20%. |
| Very early / very late | beyond that | Base chance times the contest, then cut to 30%. |
Three details follow from those formulas. A perfect release is still reduced by a contest — up to more than half of its advantage disappears against a smothered shot. Every grade is then scaled by stamina, so a tired player misses releases he would ordinarily make. And a heave from beyond 35 feet is capped at 25% even with a perfect release, so a buzzer-beater from the logo is a lottery ticket, not a strategy.
The other two timings
- Contest timing. The same shoot button defends. Holding it while a shooter releases puts a hand up; a contested shot uses the shooter's window against a smaller make chance.
- Steal timing. A steal attempt has a cooldown, and the odds depend on the defender's rating against the handler's. Mashing it is worse than waiting: you leave the play and gain nothing.
Both are covered in detail on the defense chapter, including the exact steal formula.