By John Ezekowitz Two weeks ago, I published the first part of my late game timeout study from the 2009-2010 season. I found that when the score was tied, not calling a timeout was more effective t…
harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com
Hope I didn’t make you wait too long. Also the author presents at the Sloan Sports Conference so he is legit.
Unfortunately, that article that you linked to--while interesting--is not relevant to the situation that's being discussed. It addressed TOs when down 2 pts (not 3pts). He teases at posting a final article being about TOs when down 3pts, but I couldnt find where he actually published the post addressing that (and since the article you cited was from 2010, I assume he forgot to ever publish it, LOL teaser)
Interestingly, scanning that article and googling led me to a KenPom blog post where he did a larger sample-size analysis of results when up by three and you foul (or don't foul). Which was the decision Marshall & WSU had to make at the end there. Essentially no significant (and no numerically meaningful) difference:
W L OT Win% Cases
Foul 122 5 11 92.0 138
Defend 598 2 76 93.5 676
A big factor in the "defend" strategy working better than potentially expected is that 3pt % goes down significantly for most shooters in this situation vs. overall 3pt %. KP states:
"In the 814 cases studied, teams made 98 out of 608 three-point shots (16.1%) during the possession in question. Basically, assume a player is about half as effective as normal in hitting threes when his team is down three facing a limited clock. He might even be worse since it’s possible these shots were skewed towards more effective shooters. "