Slow Pace = Better Defense = More Winning?

[supersub15]

http://www.raptorblog.com/091030a.php

Discuss...

[CR Reina]

The gap between the 71% playoff success rate for slow-paced teams compared to 45% for medium and fast-paced was much, much wider than I expected. When bad teams play good teams in college basketball, they tend to want to slow the game down and limit the number of total possessions, but the NBA is clearly littered with bad fast-paced teams. Five of the top seven teams in pace last season were non-playoff teams with the Lakers and Nuggets being the exceptions. Charlotte and New Jersey were the only teams in the top 10 in slowest pace that didn't make the playoffs.

There is a big difference between a 40 minute game with a 35 second shot clock than a 48 minute game with a 24 second shot clock, but untalented teams could only be helped by a slow pace, though I don't think it is necessarily a formula for extended success.

[amcoolio]

It sure is keeping Charlotte from being a total trainwreck this season.

Check out Charlotte's defensive numbers vs the number of turnovers they commit. Giving that many points off turnovers, Charlotte is playing excellent defense.

Of course, the slow-as-molasses pace is Larry Brown's preferred style of playing.

[supersub15]

The gap between the 71% playoff success rate for slow-paced teams compared to 45% for medium and fast-paced was much, much wider than I expected. When bad teams play good teams in college basketball, they tend to want to slow the game down and limit the number of total possessions, but the NBA is clearly littered with bad fast-paced teams. Five of the top seven teams in pace last season were non-playoff teams with the Lakers and Nuggets being the exceptions. Charlotte and New Jersey were the only teams in the top 10 in slowest pace that didn't make the playoffs.

There is a big difference between a 40 minute game with a 35 second shot clock than a 48 minute game with a 24 second shot clock, but untalented teams could only be helped by a slow pace, though I don't think it is necessarily a formula for extended success.

I was surprised as well by this gap when I first crunched the numbers. I have a hunch though that when you play slow, you win more than what your Pyth Win % suggests, because a lot of games tend to come down to the last minute, and you can steal a game or 2 over a full season. I'm going to run some numbers when I get a chance to see if this is true or not.

[supersub15]

It sure is keeping Charlotte from being a total trainwreck this season.

Check out Charlotte's defensive numbers vs the number of turnovers they commit. Giving that many points off turnovers, Charlotte is playing excellent defense.

Of course, the slow-as-molasses pace is Larry Brown's preferred style of playing.

It's amazing what Larry Brown did to your team. They go from 22nd on defense (under Sam Vincent) to 7th last year. And they're 8th this year, despite being 1-2 so far. You need one more offensive horse to get over the hump, methinks.

[CellarDoor]

The hallmark of good fast paced teams generally seems to be defensive versatility.

The Suns weren't an outright horrible defensive squad, but that stemmed from their ability to make you play their game. The problem they and every other team runs into usually is the inability to play someone else's game. If an equally good slow paced team refuses to play their pace they get into a lot of trouble and the numbers seem to bare this out. When you look at those few successful fast-paced teams, they have the skills on both sides of the ball to effectively play a number of paces. I think it's important to note the traditional nature of the PFs on those two teams as well. In comparison to teams like GS and Phoenix generally running a Corey Maggette or Shawn Marion at PF, Denver and Los Angeles both offer a conventional PF in some fashion (Martin, Gasol/Odom).

Simply put, there are very few gameplans/line-ups you could toss at those two teams that would completely exploit them.

[count55]

I was surprised as well by this gap when I first crunched the numbers. I have a hunch though that when you play slow, you win more than what your Pyth Win % suggests, because a lot of games tend to come down to the last minute, and you can steal a game or 2 over a full season. I'm going to run some numbers when I get a chance to see if this is true or not.

Rough numbers (and my breakouts are slightly different from yours...I used BBR.com Pace Ratings:

Slow: 55 of 118 won more than their Pyth (again, BBR.com source) or about 47%...3 matched it exactly and the rest did worse.

Med: 70 of 135 won more, or about 52%

Fast: 18 of 43 did better, or about 43%

Of course, it should be noted that the two "Fast" paced teams that were better than average defensively were the Nuggets (WCF) and the World Champion Lakers. The period you covered is the slowest in the history of the metric, averaging about 91 over the ten years. The NBA had averaged almost 94 during the '90's and over 101 during the '80's.

The key isn't so much that playing slower is better, it's that you can't be too out of whack with the rest of the league, at least on the high side. The 1986 Celtics, the 1987 Lakers, and the 1983 Sixers all played above 100, and are all vastly superior teams to anything we've seen this decade.

Also, it should be noted that the 108.3 League Average Defensive Rating from 2009 is worse than every year in the 1980's, with the exception of 1987, which it equals. The idea of a less talented team keeping it close to steal a win is really more optics than successful tactics. The talent differential will show in those key possessions, as it did with Jordan's Bulls vs. the Knicks. The actual gain in wins (for the weaker team) is disproportionate to the "we played 'em tough" mindset...or, as I like to call it: "Losing like Champions."

It's unfortunate that Diaw and Stoudemire got themselves suspended in 2007. I think it would have been good for the league to have the Suns win the title (the winner of that series was going to win the title), just for the sake of variety.

It's talent, not style, that wins games.

[tsherkin]

My money is that slow-paced teams who succeed are teams that tend to also be good defensively and be well-coached.

Take a look at last year:

The 39-win Pistons were 29th in pace, the 35-win Bobcats 27th.

Conversely, the 17-win Kings were 7th in pace.

I think any direct correlation between slow pace and success is misleading; teams that have size tend to play slower ball. Teams with really dominant half-court scoring threats tend to play slow. Older teams (and consequently, veteran teams) tend to play slow.

Athletic teams tend to play up-tempo, but tend to be younger, inexperienced and lacking in size.

It's really dependent on the composition of the team. As count55 mentioned, the 2007 Suns were pretty nasty when all their players were on the floor.

It sure is keeping Charlotte from being a total trainwreck this season.

Check out Charlotte's defensive numbers vs the number of turnovers they commit. Giving that many points off turnovers, Charlotte is playing excellent defense.

Of course, the slow-as-molasses pace is Larry Brown's preferred style of playing.

As far as Charlotte's concerned, I think the difference in defense between 07-08 and 08-09 is unrelated to pace.

I think that Gerald Wallace playing 9 more games had an impact, as did the addition of Augustin. The departure of Jason Richardson in favor of Raja Bell helped, and I think having a competent coach, ANY competent coach, made a significant difference.

I believe that it was more in terms of preparation, game plan and in-game adjustments that made the difference rather than pace. Watching Sam Vincent coach was like watching a lobotomy patient try and hump a doorknob while getting shot in the pecker with a BB gun (the observer, not the lobotomy patient). In a word, painful.

Larry Brown is a very good defensive coach.

I think upper-end pace is frequently associated with teams that don't know what they are doing and don't have the requisite size or defensive acumen to win, surely. But snail-pace squads aren't by nature any better. If you slow the pace of a game down, you may do as much harm to your offense as aid to your defense.

Take the 2004 Raptors as a warning; they were a good defensive squad, but limiting the pace utterly broke their offense (2nd last in the league).

In order to play slow, you need to have isolation scorers of consequence. You need to hit the glass hard on both ends of the floor and you need to have good ball movement.

So yeah, if you were to take Atlanta, say, and tell them to just slow down, they wouldn't be likely to go from, say, 12th to 7th in the league. And certainly not with Mike Woodson at the helm.

Then you look at the reigning EC champs, right? The Magic ranked 1st in team DRTG and were 12th in pace. They happen to have the rarest of commodities; a young, athletic, post-scoring center who defends like Hell will unleash on Earth if he doesn't get a stop RIGHT NOW!!

It's all about personnel, not the speed at which you play. The Showtime Lakers had a nice mix offensively, able to outrun anyone and to operate well in the halfcourt, too. And when the time came, in their title years, they had sound wing defense and Kareem in the middle to act as a last line of defense. That's how a fast team wins big. Kareem didn't always make it in time to be involved in the offense, but he was able to get boards, hit his man with an outlet pass, and get there in time for the halfcourt set if it was required. Same deal with the Russell-era Celtics.. and, uncoincidentally, the Magic (except Dwight's fast enough to be involved in transition offfense).

You can win with speed, but you'd better be able to defend. Conversely, you can win without speed, and it's easier in a way because the guys you get to craft a winning team are usually older, slower, veterans without the faculty for up-tempo ball.

[tsherkin]

I think what might be illuminating is to see the top offense/defense starting 5s, ranked by pace. Then we can get a better idea of WHO is operating well at both ends of the pace spectrum. After that, then we can get more into why.

[Crazy-Canuck]

Kevin Oneil would still be a head coach if that were the case.

[TrueLAfan]

There's also stylistic differences in speed and how it affects our perception of defensive ability and effectiveness. I got pretty tired of having to say to people that the 2005-2008 Suns were not a bad defensive team. And I can't tell you how many posters on the Player Comparisons board will say that "defenses were much worse in the 80s"...which meant, apparently, that Hakeem and Moncrief and DJ and McHale and Jordan and Kareem and everyone else has some sort of Jedi Mind trick going on.

The early years of the Celtics dynasty are an example of this. We don't have pace numbers, but we can look at FGA to get a rough idea of how much they pushed it on offense. From 1959 to 1964, the Celtics took about 9% more shots a game than the league average. That's an ungodly amount to put up on a regular basis. And yet, the Celtics were considered to be one of the best if not the best defensive teams of their era...Russell, K.C. Jones, Satch Sanders and company.

In general, I agree with the comments that coaching and player personnel are interrelated and are most important here. It's hard to define what makes for good D. I didn't think the Magic would be a particualrly good defensive team last year; they certainly didn't have a lot of top level defensive players. (Rashard? Hedo? Alston? Nelson? On D? Really?) But as tsherkin alludes to, they used D12 really effectively, and really got it done. They had a scheme--contest and shut down as many threes as possible, and let Dwight manage the interior. The Magic were third in the league in fewest 3PA allowed, and second in lowest 3P% allowed. Do that with Dwight Howard in the middle, and you're going to be brutally good on D. As a result, they were first in opponent lowest opponents TS%. You'd never know from the personnel. Good coaching and a good plan made it work. I suspect that this is exactly what the Celtics of the Sixties did too. Worked then, works now. My hat's off to them.

[CB-Blazer]

I do believe that there is a correlation between playing fast and losing, but like everything else there is always exceptions. Like someone has already pointed out though, the "fast paced teams" of now aren't anything out of the ordinary when you look at the NBA as a whole.

It seems to me like, the majority of the younger/inexpereinced teams play faster. I don't know if it is because they are young and fresh and feel they can wear the older teams out, or what, but it generally seems like the younger/inexperienced teams that play at a fast pace are some of the worst.

I believe this is due to having young experienced players, pushing an offensive scheme that needs to be run by veterans. Playing faster tends to lead to more turnovers, more bad shots and being out of position for rebounding. The older, experienced teams have learned to curb these problems (PHX, DEN, LAL) while the younger teams struggle (OKC, GSW, SAC)

[missionSF]

The argument can be made that often times younger teams should play a fast-paced style against older, better teams because it gives them their best chance of winning, at least in the interim. In doing so, you increase volatility. The younger team increases its chances of getting the hot hand by ramping up the pace of the game. Of course, it also increases its chances of going cold, but the inexperienced team takes that risk knowing that if they play it safe, they have a lower chance of winning (since the more experienced team is better at playing a conventional style and will simply out-execute you down the stretch). So what happens is the younger team is looking to increase the effect of runs throughout the basketball game in the hope that it can strike gold and be on the good side of those runs. It increases its chances of winning, but also increases its chance of being blown out of the ball game.

I disagree with this approach. For one, the younger team is still not very likely to win either way. And it almost certainly isn't likely to win enough of the time to contend for a championship or, in the least, reach the playoffs. So you have to ask yourself, what's the point of adding a few more wins to what will ultimately be a losing season? Some people will say that young teams should win as many games as they can so that they can experience the feeling of winning more often and experience the feeling of losing less often by whatever amount of games that may be. But the problem is, the losses the teams do experience will far more often be of the blowout variety. And the wins the teams do experience will be on occasional nights when everything goes right. In both these cases, what does the team *really* learn?

The crux of valuable experience takes place during close games. By slowing down the pace and sacrificing a few short-term wins in sight of the long-term goal, you will play more close games and that is where the most learning can occur. You will most likely lose, but you have more of a chance of getting better. The problem is that teams often don't realistically assess how successful their rosters can be. The goal of every season should either be to contend or to learn how to contend. The organization, coaches, and players should know which category the team falls under so that they can effectively achieve that goal. You don't learn how to contend by splashing around and effectively gambling night in and night out, hoping to hit your magic number. By doing so you will likely win a few more games but also lose valuable time and opportunity to grow as a team.

[Cassius]

^Awesome post.

Also, this board is freaking awesome. The morons probably look at this stuff and think that it's all written in hieroglyphics.

[Twinkie defense]

I suppose this is an old thread (I got confused bu the Larry Brown references - is he back!?), but it's interesting to note now that the Warriors have the fastest pace in the NBA, and also are #1 in defensive efficiency and #1 in winning percentage.

I'm not an analytics guy but it always seemed to me that pace is not a good defensive statistic - keeping the final score low doesn't matter if your opponent is shooting a high percentage and you're still losing games. More interesting to me has always been opponent FG% and FG% differential. And of course, if you're simply getting a lot more possessions - whether those are rebounds or forcing turnovers, which may not correlate well to pace. And also, in today's NBA there is a premium on defending the three point line (and beyond) and the rim - and a fast pace might actually make it HARDER to defend those shots.

Though I suppose in 2015 there are a lot better ways of measuring team defense and getting out of this 2009 correlation/causation trap.

[Chicago76]

I suppose this is an old thread (I got confused bu the Larry Brown references - is he back!?), but it's interesting to note now that the Warriors have the fastest pace in the NBA, and also are #1 in defensive efficiency and #1 in winning percentage.

I'm not an analytics guy but it always seemed to me that pace is not a good defensive statistic - keeping the final score low doesn't matter if your opponent is shooting a high percentage and you're still losing games. More interesting to me has always been opponent FG% and FG% differential. And of course, if you're simply getting a lot more possessions - whether those are rebounds or forcing turnovers, which may not correlate well to pace. And also, in today's NBA there is a premium on defending the three point line (and beyond) and the rim - and a fast pace might actually make it HARDER to defend those shots.

Though I suppose in 2015 there are a lot better ways of measuring team defense and getting out of this 2009 correlation/causation trap.

Two problems with inferring defensive ability from pace:
1) game pace is really a function of two things: your O's pace and your D's pace. A team can play fast on O but really slow teams down on the defensive end (good D typically) and the pace washes out as average. The offense pollutes what you can infer of the team's defense.
2) certain aspects of pace might be counter what is good defense if you assume slower general pace is better:
a-if your O is sloppy and turns the ball over a lot (leading to fast break buckets), that increases pace (by shortening possessions), but it's not really on the D, the problem is the O
b-defensive rebounding. All else equal good defensive rebounding is good, but it also shortens possessions and increases game pace.
c-poor offensive rebounding. If a team concedes offensive boards more than lg avg to get back on D (and play better D), then they shorten their team's offensive possessions, which increases turnovers.
d-forcing turnovers. If a defense is really good at forcing TOVs (maximizing risk/reward of steal attempts), possessions will be shorter and pace will be higher.

b to d don't typically have a huge impact, because variance between teams isn't that high relative to total possessions, but if a team is consistently above average at all three of these things, then defense wil typically be very good, while pace will typically be higher.