Like elaborate Halloween decorations and the changing color of leaves, the refrain comes every fall: NBA teams say they want to play faster.
This season, the New York Knicks wanted to play faster. The Orlando Magic wanted to play faster. The Portland Trail Blazers wanted to play faster. The Miami Heat wanted to play faster. The Memphis Grizzlies wanted to play faster. The Chicago Bulls wanted to play faster.
And that's just a list of teams generated with a quick internet search. Potentially, all 30 coaching staffs had at least some discussion about playing faster this season; the NBA's current "pace-and-space" era, after all, starts with pace, and a record 18 teams are averaging at least 100 possessions per game. A decade ago, only two teams -- including the 73-win Golden State Warriors -- reached triple digits.
"You always wish you could play faster. You want to play faster," Knicks coach Mike Brown said. "We're efficient when we play fast, and we want to keep doing it as much as we can."
The idea is that playing faster leads to better offense. But a surprising pattern has emerged this season: The fastest teams are worse at offense, while the slowest teams are better.
Out of the top 10 teams this season in pace, not one ranks in the top 10 in offensive efficiency, and only two -- the Atlanta Hawks and Minnesota Timberwolves -- are in the top eight in the standings in either conference. Three of the four worst offenses in the league rank among the pace leaders.
Meanwhile, out of the bottom 10 teams in pace, five rank among the top 10 in offensive efficiency, and seven are in playoff position. Three of the five best offenses in the league -- the Boston Celtics, New York and the Charlotte Hornets -- rank among the pace laggards. And the most efficient offense, the Denver Nuggets, is 20th in pace, just one spot out of the bottom 10.
On average, the 10 slowest teams have outscored the 10 fastest teams by 3.1 points per 100 possessions. That's the largest gap in the NBA advanced stats database, which dates to 1996-97.
ESPN spoke with coaches, players and front office members around the league to explore the reasons behind this counterintuitive phenomenon, and what it could mean for the upcoming playoffs.
Note: Stats are through April 7's games.
Faster process, worse results
To understand the unexpected mismatch between pace and efficiency this season, the first place to look is, surprisingly, the field of monetary policy and a piece of philosophical wisdom called Goodhart's Law. Named after Charles Goodhart, a British economist from the mid-20th century, it states, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."