Indeed, this is quite impressive. I really didn't think the GE was that sophisticated and wrongly deduced that something buggy had occured. This is not about the choice to foul or not but more about the drastic "preemptive action" taken.
Now, out of curiosity, I know that nobody has any direct inside view of the GE but still, do you think that in this situation the trailing team is instructed to full court press to force TO ? Since the coach is smart enough to plan ahead on a double bonus, he should at the same time adopt a more considered approach to defense.
Again, I didn't want to start a discussion about fouling or not fouling. Actually, this is interesting. I would not advocate fouling in most cases except when it earns you an extra ball possession. When you're trailing, ball possession time is critical. Leading teams main objective is not to score but to kill time. When they have possession, you're left with not so much options. With 70s to go, a 3 pt lead and ball in hands, a leading team is in position to get two full 24 seconds possession in order to kill time, it leaves the trailing team with little time to bounce back. If the trailing team purposely gives FT by 70s, it might face a larger points difference (it will certainly) but saves valuable time and most importantly gets the opportunity to boss how time should be split according to score evolution and in order to have the crucial last ball possession. It's no perfect plan, so many things can happen, in terms of reasoning, you try to stick to what is more probable. If you do not foul by 70s, the leading team will only shot at the clock, whether they score or not is almost irrelevant, the trailing team will be 3 pts or more down, with only 45 to 50 sec left in a 1vs1 possession context. So very probably, they will have to foul anyway. But because we are inside a minute, it will stay a 1vs1 possession whatever you do. If you foul by 70s, you prevent this, you gain one extra ball possession. If you do not, your only hope for not having to foul later is an early TO. Possible but not very likely.
Of course this is merely theorical. You're behind, you look bad already, anything is a desperate attempt to overcome things, you did badly in the first place.