Thunder solved one of the NBA's biggest strategy debates in the worst way

For those unaware, maybe you’re on the east coast or something, the Western Conference semifinals game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets was a little crazy at the end. After a steady comeback in the last four minutes or so, the Nuggets repeatedly found themselves on offense within three points of the Thunder.

The Thunder took this opportunity to foul. The idea is to send the other team, who is in the bonus, to the free throw line where they can only make up two points of a three point difference. Not a lot of game clock runs down, but you bet you can outpace your opponent on free throws.

Well, fouls occurred back and forth, and eventually Chet Holmgren found himself at the free throw line, up on, with a chance to put the lead back to three again. And probably foul again.

Chet missed, Denver went the other way, Aaron Gordon hit a 3, game.

So, uh, this was the wrong strategy, right?

Right. Again, there are a lot of thoughts on this. Here’s what John Hollinger had to say about it:

“Good morning. "Foul up 3" is the only way you can lose in regulation.”

On the other hand, Chet Holmgren is a 75 percent free throw shooter, and Jokic was on the bench. During the regular season, the Oklahoma City Thunder had the league’s best free team-wide free throw percentage. Denver was down at 23rd. You can kind of picture it as a war of attrition. In most situations, you will come out on top in a very, very boring way.

Of course, there are times that even the strategy that makes the most sense in some statistical fashion gets hit with an exception. 95 percent of the time, something might be successful. That 5 percent still exists. What if that 5 percent happens in Game 1 of the second round with a fairly good shooter missing two freebies at a crucial moment?

I don’t want to think about this. What’s the right answer?

Ultimately, what it comes down to is recency bias. I’ve thought about it for a while, and what I’ve discovered is that whatever happened most recently is the most correct thing. That’s the ideal way to live life. Just react to your immediate circumstances. Like a dog. Change your mind a lot for bad reasons that make no sense. You’re probably going to change it back again anyway, so it’s not a big deal.

It keeps things fresh. It also means that you’re always surrounded with people who agree with you. If you always say the most popular thing, you’re always going to have friends. Well, not friends, but you can be part of a mob! Who doesn’t want to be part of a mob?!

The most recent thing to happen was that fouling up three didn’t work, therefore, fouling up three is wrong. And also bad.