Optimal End-Game Strategy in Basketball

Annis David H.
Additional contact information
Annis David H.: Naval Postgraduate School

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2006, vol. 2, issue 2, 11

Abstract: When faced with protecting a three-point lead in the waning seconds of a basketball game, which is a preferable strategy: playing defense or fouling the offense before they can attempt a game-tying shot? Gonzaga University head coach, Mark Few, was faced with such a decision against Michigan State in the semi-finals of the Maui Invitational (November 22, 2005) and elected to play defense. The strategy backfired, as Michigan State's Maurice Ager made a three-point basket at the buzzer to force overtime. (Gonzaga eventually won in triple overtime.) Was this failure to hold the lead at the end of regulation bad luck or bad strategy? Put another way, which strategy (conventional defense or intentionally fouling) maximizes the defensive team's chances of winning the game? Drawing on the Gonzaga/Michigan State game for inspiration, this paper addresses this question and concludes that, contrary to popular belief, intentionally fouling is preferable to playing tight defense.

Keywords: strategy; basketball; optimal; intentional foul (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1559-0410.1030 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:2:y:2006:i:2:n:1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jqas/html

DOI: 10.2202/1559-0410.1030

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports is currently edited by Mark Glickman

More articles in Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().