Chapter 9, Problem 70CP

Free-throw accuracy Consider all cases in which a pro basketball player shoots two free throws and makes one and misses one. Which do you think is more common: making the first and missing the second, or missing the first and making the second? One of the best shooters was Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics. During 1980–1982 he made only the first free throw 34 times and made only the second 48 times (A. Tversky and T. Gilovich, Chance, vol. 2, pp. 16–21, 1989). Does this suggest that one sequence was truly more likely than the other sequence for Larry Bird? Answer by conducting a significance test (a) defining notation and specifying assumptions and hypotheses, (b) finding the test statistic, and (c) finding the P-value and interpreting in this context.