NBA Playgrounds

I am going to focus on the 15 steals challenge because that seems to be the major issue with this achievement.

They key to this is knowing how stamina works in this game. While you cannot see the stamina bars of the CPU, you can see them do actions that cause them to lose stamina, and thus make it easier to steal the ball.

First, you want to get the ball and follow the guidelines below. As shown by the video clip, actions that make the CPU lose stamina while you have the ball include: Stealing, Pushing, and Elbowing.

Stealing: This is the most common form of stamina use. One swipe from the CPU is not enough to drain their stamina, so you need to bait them into attempting to steal 2-3 times before letting them steal it. Then do a quick steal when they pick up the ball to get the best chance of getting it back.

Pushing: Whenever the CPU has nothing in their Lottery Bar (Power-up bar at the top), they tend to try and push you when you have the ball. This is because pushing causes you to lose power on the lottery bar, so since they have no lottery bar power, they can push without penalty. Although it doesn't happen often, the CPU will occasionally try to steal with no lottery bar. Pushing tends to be a big stamina waste, so immediately after the CPU picks up the ball, you will have a good chance to steal.

Elbowing: Similar to pushing, the CPU loses a ton of stamina while elbowing with the ball. So if you can get close immediately after an elbow, you have a good chance at a steal.


If the CPU ever gets the ball and makes a few passes, do your best to let them score quickly so you can get the ball back. Winning is not the goal here, stealing is.

As a disclaimer, even with this strategy, there is no guarantee at a steal, and 15 steals in 3 minutes is still challenging. This took me at least 3 hours to perfect the endless stealing.

I hope this can provide some help to this tough challenge!

To the handful of us who want to 100% the game before it gets delisted and removed from Game pass

There was a patch that reduced the goals for the last couple of challenges that was never mentioned in the solutions. For instance, the 15 Steals in Las Vegas was reduced down to 6.

As for team comp, I don't really have too much advice other than play people with 9's and 10's in the field you are working on.

The point of this post is to say it IS possible and you ONLY need to do the 4 challenges for each of the 6 Playgrounds. Anything after that was just fluff they added later and not tied to this achievement.

Don't let it look like a mountain, you got this!

So the above solution and comments are great. Just a couple tips that I found that worked for me.

-Steals are easiest when the opponent is lower on stamina. I found that if I went to the opponents corner and let them steal the ball from me I was able to swipe right away a couple of times and they seemed to get steals fairly often. This worked for me the first time I did it. Not saying it’s a guaranteed method, but give it a shot.

-Blocks were the hardest for me. I used Mutombo and Gobert. While Bill had the special block ability, I found that the taller players worked best for me regardless. I have read that ‘mashing’ Y works for some people, but I was able to unlock it by “holding” Y through the blocks. Obviously, you’re trying to play defense the whole time. Full court shots and speeding down the court to dunk are your only real options in the interest of time. Do not concern yourself with winning. Just float near the top of the key and hope they start shooting. Never get up in their face. Give them some room and for dunks, coming from behind seemed to work best for me. Play the whole game through too! I got 3 blocks in the last 25 seconds.

I noticed most people are writing a guide for steals but no mention of who best to use.
Naturally you'd think someone with 10 steal is the best (as did I), so maybe you'd use Rondo (twice) and every time I failed, but whilst I was going for 3 pointers, I was using Sam Jones and Steph Curry and I noticed these 2 were getting steals for fun (I assume it's due to high stamina).

Anyway, try those 2 or anyone with high stamina, I ended up getting about 8 steals.