The Spurs had a 96% chance to win this game

[travis2]

Each miss one, in this case, means each miss at least one. Basically he should have summed all these up (assume q=1-p):

1) Prob of each player missing exactly 1 FT (your calculation above): 2*2*p1q1p2q2
2) Prob of only one player missing 2FT = q1q1p2p2 + p1p1q2q2
3) Prob of one player missing 2 FT and the other missing 1FT: 2*q1q1p2q2 + 2*p1q1q2q2
4) Prob of both players missing all their free throws : q1q1q2q2

True. Of course, if we are looking at this set of possibilities, it's easier to calculate the probability of nobody missing anything and subtracting from 1:

P[at least 1 miss] = 1 - P[no miss] = 1 - [2C2*p1*p1][2C2*p2*p2] = 1 - [(1)(0.825)(0.825)][(1)(0.796)(0.796)] = 1 - 0.431 = 0.569

So yeah, the probability was pretty good someone was going to miss something.

[Kobulingam]

True. Of course, if we are looking at this set of possibilities, it's easier to calculate the probability of nobody missing anything and subtracting from 1:

P[at least 1 miss] = 1 - P[no miss] = 1 - [2C2*p1*p1][2C2*p2*p2] = 1 - [(1)(0.825)(0.825)][(1)(0.796)(0.796)] = 1 - 0.431 = 0.569

So yeah, the probability was pretty good someone was going to miss something.

What we need here is P[at least 2 misses] = 1 - P[no miss] - P[player A misses 1] - P[player B misses 1]

[jstep13]

nerd alert!

[travis2]

What we need here is P[at least 2 misses] = 1 - P[no miss] - P[player A misses 1] - P[player B misses 1]

Rewrite this as P[at least 2 misses] = 1 - P[no miss] - P[player A misses 1, player B makes both] - P[player A makes both, player B misses 1]

1 - 0.431 - 0.183 - 0.221 = 0.165

Definitely not betting odds...