Answer :
The problem is essentially asking, how many ways can you select 6 different players from a group of 8 players?
When order is important, we use the permutation formula and when order is not important, we use the combination formula.
Here, the order is not important , so we use the combination formula. Shown below:
[tex]^nC_r=\frac{n!}{(n-r)!r!}[/tex]This is the number of ways to select r things from total n things.
We have
r = 6
n = 8
Substituting and simplifying, we have:
[tex]\begin{gathered} ^nC_r=\frac{n!}{(n-r)!r!} \\ ^8C_6=\frac{8!}{(8-6)!6!} \\ =\frac{8!}{2!6!} \\ =\frac{8\cdot7\cdot6\cdot5\cdot4\cdot3\cdot2\cdot1}{2\cdot1\cdot6\cdot5\cdot4\cdot3\cdot2\cdot1} \\ =\frac{8\cdot7}{2\cdot1} \\ =\frac{56}{2} \\ =28 \end{gathered}[/tex]So,
Coach Malone would need 28 games to achieve his target.