How the match engine works

Every Swish & Dunk game is simulated possession by possession — not decided by one dice roll on team Overall. This page explains what happens inside a game and which numbers matter, so you know exactly what your lineup, tactics and roster decisions change.

Update, October 2026: the engine has been recalibrated against real NBA statistics, with a faster pace, modern shot selection, stronger stars and closer finishes. Read what changed in the new match engine.

A game, step by step

1. Loading the teams. The engine loads both active rosters, each club's rotation (starting five, order and minute targets) and its offensive and defensive tactics. If a club has not set a rotation, one is built automatically from player Overall.
2. Tip-off. Every player starts at 100 stamina and the first five in the rotation start on the floor. A starter coming back after 10 or more straight games on the bench is rusty and plays the first quarter at 85% of their ratings.
3. Quarter by quarter. Each quarter is played possession by possession until the clock runs out. After every possession the engine updates the score, plus/minus, minutes and stamina, checks substitutions and gives the ball to the other team — unless the offense grabbed the rebound.
4. Overtime. If the score is tied after 48 minutes, the teams play 5-minute overtime periods until one of them wins.
5. Final buzzer. The engine saves the final score, the quarter-by-quarter line, the box score of every player and the full play-by-play. That is exactly what you watch in the replay.

Inside a single possession

A possession is a chain of small matchups — “duels” — between an attacker and a defender. Every duel starts from a base rate and moves with the difference between the two ratings involved:

probability = base rate + (attack rating − defense rating) ÷ 400  →  kept between 1% and 99%

So a 20-point edge in a matchup moves the odds by 5 percentage points. Over a hundred-plus possessions, those small edges decide games.

1. Transition or half-court. About 15% of possessions start as a fast break, scaled up or down by your offensive tactic's transition tendency.
2. Who has the ball, and which play. The engine picks the ball handler from the players on the floor, weighting position and ratings, then picks the play: isolation, pick-and-roll, post-up, catch-and-shoot or transition. Each play is weighted by the ratings that matter for it — isolation, for example, leans on shooting off the dribble and ball handling.
3. The defense. A primary defender is assigned, normally the opponent at the same position.
4. Turnover check. Ball security against defensive pressure, starting from a 13% base rate. Basketball IQ, ball security and decision making all help the ball handler.
5. Shot selection. Close, mid-range or three, weighted by the shooter's ratings and by your tactic's three-point and paint tendencies.
6. Make or miss. The base rate for the shot type, moved by the shooter-versus-contest duel.
7. Fouls. Shooting fouls start from an 8% base rate and can turn into an and-one. Non-shooting fouls start from 5%; from the fifth team foul in a quarter, every foul sends the other team to the line.
8. Rebounds. On a miss, the offense grabs the ball back roughly a quarter of the time, more or less depending on the offensive rebounding, box-out and strength of the ten players on the floor.

What your ratings and choices change

• Ratings. About 50 ratings per player on a 1–100 scale: shooting (close, mid-range, three, free throws, off the dribble, catch-and-shoot, post), playmaking (ball handling, passing, vision, ball security), defense (perimeter, interior, steals, blocks, contests), rebounding, athleticism (speed, strength, stamina, vertical) and mental attributes.
• Fatigue. A player's effective ratings drop as their stamina runs down during the game — up to 30% on an empty tank. A high Stamina attribute softens that drop by up to 60%, and players recover while they sit on the bench.
• Game shape. A player's physical condition scales every rating from 0.90 (poor) to 1.00 (excellent).
• Home court. The home team gets +1.2% on every rating. Small on its own, noticeable across a whole game.
• Tactics. Swish & Dunk has 8 offensive and 8 defensive systems, all compared in the tactics guide. Offensive systems change pace, three-point and paint tendencies, pick-and-roll usage, transition, ball movement, turnover risk and offensive rebounding. Defensive systems change pace, perimeter and interior contests, how many turnovers you force, your foul rate and defensive rebounding.

Hot nights and cold nights

Before tip-off every player gets a “night” modifier, drawn once and kept for the whole game. It comes from the Consistency rating: a very consistent player swings by about ±3% at most, a streaky one by up to ±23%. The draw is bell-shaped, so extreme nights are rare.

The swing applies in full to shooting ratings and only one third to everything else: a player with a cold hand still defends and passes. All effective ratings are capped at 100 after these modifiers.

Clutch time

Clutch time is the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter or of any overtime, with the margin at 8 points or fewer. In that window:

• Clutch scales the ratings in each duel from −10% (clutch 1) to +10% (clutch 100); 50 is neutral.
• Experience matters: a 19-year-old plays about 8% worse under pressure, a 24-year-old is neutral and a 38-year-old veteran plays about 8% better.
• Leadership: the two best leaders on the floor cut their team's turnover chance by up to 15%.
• Hero ball: stars with high Overall and Clutch become up to 2.6 times more likely to take the big shot.

Momentum and timeouts

Each team carries a momentum value that moves after every possession: a three adds more than a two, turnovers and defensive stops swing it the other way, and it fades by 10% every possession so no run lasts forever. It is capped at ±0.6 and moves the odds of the next shot and turnover by a few percentage points in either direction.

When a team's momentum crashes below −0.4, its coach calls a timeout automatically (7 per game): momentum resets to zero and the players on the floor get a small stamina boost.

Rotations and substitutions

Your rotation sets a minute target for every player. During the game a player is subbed out when:

• their stamina falls below 45;
• they are in foul trouble — 3 fouls in the first half or 4 in the third quarter — or foul out with 6;
• they are more than 1.5 minutes over their minute target at that point of the game.

The replacement has to play the same position, as a primary or a secondary position. If nobody on the bench fits, the player stays on the floor — so roster balance matters as much as star power.

Injuries

Injuries are rare and only happen on contact plays (shots and rebounds). The risk goes up with fatigue and with a player's Aggressiveness, and down with their Durability. An injured player leaves the game, and the first available backup at that position comes in.

Durable players get a larger share of mild injuries. Your club can fight back: at level 5, the Team Physician halves both the injury risk and the days out, and the Performance & Medical Center makes recovery up to three times faster.

How random is it?

There is variance — upsets happen, as in real basketball — but the better-built team wins more often. Every game runs on a seeded random generator derived from the game and the two clubs, so a game's result is reproducible and the replay always matches the box score.

What this means for your club

• Give heavy minutes to players with a high Stamina attribute: they lose far less of their ratings late in games.
• Streaky shooters win you some nights and lose you others; consistent ones give you a predictable floor.
• Close games are decided by Clutch, Leadership and experience — keep a veteran leader in your closing five.
• Build a bench that covers every position, or foul trouble and injuries will leave tired starters on the floor.
• Do not bury a starter on the bench for 10+ games and then throw them back in: rust costs 15% in the first quarter.
• If injuries keep hurting you, upgrade the Team Physician and the Performance & Medical Center.

Tactics move every number on this page: the guide to offensive and defensive tactics covers all sixteen systems and which one beats which. And to see the club around the engine — roster, training, arena, market — start from what Swish & Dunk is. For a comparison with real basketball, our analysis of 30 NBA seasons shows how the game changed between 1996 and today. And to see what the engine produced over an entire season, read the Season 1 recap.

Last updated: October 2, 2026