Cavs' 4th quarters

The Cleveland Cavaliers made their city proud when they beat the Detroit Pistons in the NBA playoffs to move on to the finals against the San Antonio Spurs. During the games against the Pistons, the Cavaliers became notorious for making a big 4th quarter push, which resulted in winning games 3, 4, 5, and 6. Now in the first two games of the finals against the Spurs, the Cavs are still making 4th quarter pushes, but the aggression and concentration is coming too late in the game to pull out a win.
I believe that this article demonstrates many economic practices that we have learned thus far. If the Cavs do move to playing harder in the first quarter, this will take away some of their limited resources of energy for the end of the game. On the other hand, waiting until the end of the game to make a push limits the time left to win the game.
Mike Brown says of Spurs' Genobili "That was a heck of a shot and a smart play on his part, very smart," when Genobili leaned into Gibson to force a foul. Basketball players must use marginal analysis to decide if they should make a shot or force a foul. They must also decide at the margin how many points they need to score in a shot (2 or 3) in order to benefit them best according to the current score. Now, I'll admit, I know very little about basketball, but I do find it interesting to realize that economics is all around us.