The number of [old-time] basketball games with final score \(n\):\(n\) where the home team was never losing but also never ahead by more than \(w\) points (Q870079)

Summary: We show that the generating function (in \(n\)) for the number of walks on the square lattice with steps \((1,1)\), \((1,-1)\), \((2,2)\) and \((2,-2)\) from \((0,0)\) to \((2n,0)\) in the region \(0 \leq y\leq w\) satisfies a very special fifth order nonlinear recurrence relation in \(w\) that implies both its numerator and denominator satisfy a linear recurrence relation.