Basketball Statistics Blog

Statistician's Digest: Which team controls the game's pace ?

Which team controls the pace of the game ? For instance, if Team A (90.6 poss/g) and Team B (96.7 poss/g) played, which team would control the pace ? As might be expected it would be somewhere in the middle (93.7 poss/g) or could one team give direction to the pace involving only main features ? By the way, which team has had the advantage of controlling the pace... the drudgery team or the up-tempo team? Can a team to use pace as a strategic advantage ?

What is the importance of determining which team controls pace: Does it matter ?
Somebody can prove that a team actually gain an advantage by controlling pace ?
What says the work of the eBA Basketball Statistics Analysis to determine whether it's true to determine that a team's ability to control pace could be important ?

About this topic of who controls tempo, it seems to me that the real question is: for whom is it more important to limit fast break points ? All teams obviously want to reduce them, but for whom is it most important ?

This discussion always leads to the question whether "controlling the tempo" is anything different from being able to successfully run one's sets and being able to keep the other team from being able to successfully run their sets. There, I think, two sides of the question:

1) Can teams gain a significant edge by forcing a given tempo. Can you can build a team to play well at a certain pace (fast/slow), and then force your opponents to play at that pace?

2) Are there teams that do particularly good jobs at controlling the tempo based on in game situation? It's obviously better to play slow when you are ahead and fast when you are behind (all other things being equal). Do certain teams do this significantly better than others?
(to be continued next Sunday)

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