I have suspected this about Basketball in particular for some time. The score never seems to reflect runaway victories; it often comes down to last-second shots. Ditto with Cricket, where “sixers” needed to push a score over a certain number at the end of a game suddenly seem effortless.
I would imagine such scripting would be more difficult for Football and Baseball, due to the number of variables and “moving parts” in a game. Hence the wider win margins. I guess in those sports it’s more a case of the coaches making sure that their team, if the designated “loser”, is not performing better than the opponent.
The thing about NBA basketball is that for 80% of the game, those guys are hardly trying.
The reason being is that they are like thoroughbred horses. If they ran all-out, they would all be hurt in a week of games.
So, they go through the motions for most of the game and them play hard. When the playoffs come, they put the pedal to the floor.