The NBA has gradually moved away from the paint and toward the three-point line in recent years. Yet without a strong presence in the paint, outside shots are much more difficult to make due to defenders being free to stick to their man. Even if the shot doesn’t come from below the basket as often as it used to, being good in the paint is still as necessary as ever in basketball.
This mantra is replicated well in NBA 2K23, so it’s never a bad idea to give your post presence a lift via finishing badges. These badges are one of four classes, alongside defensive and rebounding, playmaking, and shooting badges. Each class covers a different aspect of the game. Finishing badges take care of dunks, layups, contact, and everything else that happens in the paint.
If you are a sharp-shooter that is allergic to drives, you’re probably thinking you don’t need any finishing badges in NBA 2K23. Unless you’re truly glued to the three-point line, though, rest assured that every drive to the basket will be littered with frustration without proper finishing badge support.
As usual, we will try to be versatile with our guide and give different options for different heights and positions. First, let’s get you introduced to finishing badges and what they do in NBA 2K23.
All NBA 2K23 finishing badges
- Acrobat – Spin, hop step, euro-step, cradle, reverse, and change shot layup attempts receive a boost. Additionally, the ability to beat defenders with gathers is improved.
- Aerial Wizard – Increases the ability to finish an alley-oop from a teammate, or a putback finish off an offensive rebound.
- Backdown Punisher – Allows players to have more success than normal when backing down a defender while posting up.
- Bully – Improves a player’s ability to initiate contact and get to the rim on layup attempts.
- Dream Shake – Post-move fakes have a higher chance of stunning a defender. Also, shot attempts following fakes, shimmies, and shot fakes have an increased shot percentage.
- Dropstepper – Allows for more success when attempting post drop steps and hop steps, in addition to protecting the ball better while performing these moves in the post.
- Fast Twitch – Speeds up the ability to get standing layups or dunks off before the defense has time to contest.
- Fearless Finisher – Strengthens a player’s ability to absorb contact and still finish. Also reduces the amount of energy lost from contact layups.
- Giant Slayer – Boosts the shot percentage for a layup attempt when mismatched against a taller defender and reduces the possibility of getting blocked.
- Limitless Takeoff – When attacking the basket, a player with the badge will start their dunk attempt from farther out than others.
- Masher – Improves a player’s ability to finish well around the rim, especially over smaller defenders.
- Posterizer – Increases the chances of throwing down a dunk on your defender.
- Post Spin Technician – Attempting to do post spins or drives results in more effective moves, and less of a chance to be stripped.
- Pro Touch – Gives an extra shot boost for having slightly early, slightly late, or excellent shot timing on layups. Layup timing must be turned on.
- Rise Up – Increases the likelihood of dunking or posterizing your opponent when standing in the painted area.
- Slithery – Increases a player’s ability to slide through traffic, protect the ball from being stolen, and avoid contact during gathers and finishes at the rim.
While most other badges’ usefulness can be split into three separate positions and playstyles—guard, wing, or big man—finishing badges can really only be split into two playstyles. You’re either a slasher or a big man. A couple of badges are related to height, so it’ll make a difference if you’re a small guard or a tall wing. But for most badges, those distinctions don’t matter.
Best NBA 2K23 finishing badges for slashers
There are two separate builds we would suggest depending on your priority when slashing: one for dunkers and one for more finesse players. Since most players putting vast resources into finishing badges in NBA 2K23 will be primarily dunkers, we’ll start with them.
A dunking slasher’s holy trinity of finishing badges is:
- Posterizer
- Limitless Takeoff
- Fearless Finisher
Posterizer and Limitless Takeoff are self-explanatory: they enhance the range of your dunk and make them way harder to negate. Fearless Finisher is the cherry on top that will result in so many posters, Vinsanity himself would be impressed.
If you’re not always looking for a dunk but would rather go for a layup, this is the best finishing badge setup:
- Acrobat
- Bully
- Slithery
Fearless Finisher aids layups as well, so it’s very much viable, but we’d go with the trio above. Bully and Slithery do wonders for making your way to the basket uninterrupted. Acrobat will give you additional tools to avoid defenders at the rim while also boosting the all-important gather step. It’s difficult to beat this badge combination.
We do wish to bring Giant Slayer to the attention of miniature guards. It is a surprisingly effective badge that could save you some block embarrassment. If you are running a small guard, Giant Slayer could slide in the top three instead of Bully.
Best NBA 2K23 finishing badges for big men
We don’t want to completely dismiss back-down, post-move bigs, but the truth is the optimal NBA 2K23 big man build is an athletic pick-and-roll guy with a soft touch around the rim. Luckily, we have just the finishing badges to complement that playstyle:
- Fast Twitch
- Aerial Wizard
- Pro Touch
- Masher
If you’ve read our previous guides, you may be surprised by the inclusion of Aerial Wizard. It is technically a situational badge and we usually dismiss those. The thing is, alley-oops aren’t that situational if you have the tools to perform them and can easily net you double-digit points per game. Not to mention it is also effective for putbacks.
Fast Twitch and Pro Touch go together like bread and butter. Finish fast, finish well, nothing more to tell. Finally, we have Masher as a bonus for extremely tall builds. If you’re 7 feet 3 inches tall, you’ll have a height advantage against most defenders, which means Masher will take effect most of the time—which is what we like the most about a badge.
That does it for our NBA 2K23 finishing badges guide. These recommendations are always somewhat dependent on playstyle, so feel free to experiment and find out what works best for your build.
