Some of the players (which are good at shooting especially) will score the ball even if your releasing timer is a bit off, so don't let that throw you off entirely if you miss the yellow gauge sometimes.

The Drive works better if a player has a better ball control ability, because then they will be more comfortable to perform more fake moves.

There are three ways that you can pass in a game: by tapping the pass button (and then your player will pass the ball to the player which has the circle underneath, but more often than not this will fail - trust me), the tap, hold and drag pass (when you tap the pass button, hold it and drag towards the player that you want to pass to) and by tapping on the player which is available (you can tap exactly on the player which you want to receive the pass).

My favorite one would be the last, because that one will be more accurate in my opinion and you can do it in just the split of a second.

The good thing about Shot Defense is that you can keep holding the button down and it will affect the opponent player's scoring rate - a.k.a. it will make the opponent miss or have less accuracy in their shot.

I almost always use the Lockdown Defense, because that will automatically force the opponent to pass more often and eventually try to score, which is when I go for the Shot Defense and try to either get a good rebound or just to steal the ball by continuously holding Lockdown Defense.