This is true in a certain way, I think: (1) we tend to slow up early in the shot clock when we have the ball, to ācatch a breathā. (2) we focus on stopping transition rather than crashing the offensive boards. And relatedly (3), we donāt push in transition so as to avoid turnovers.
But then the question becomes - what horizon are you at? If your North Star is trying to improve your offense, instead of your defense, your view on this stuff changes. And Iād argue that this collection of athletes/shooters is pretty much at their defensive horizon (I think, but not confidently). So to improve, you need to care more about offense, which will lead to less stout defense.
But thatās life! You canāt maximize everything; you need to maximize the overall outcome.
Score faster or take shots earlier in the shot clock?
I think if you rotate the ball enough, youāre likely going to be able to exploit the packline via 1) missed rotation (which happens more frequently) or 2) exploit a hedge / double team. Leads to longer possessions. If all else fails, you shoot a three pointer as a fall back.
Playing hard defense for extended periods of time does impact both sides of the court. Would be nice to switch things up occasionally as well in game depending on flow.
What is true? Your response seems to be about offense, but what you quoted from me was about defense. But, whatever, as the kids say, or they used to before they got too soft even to say that.
My Polaris is maximizing the spread between AdjOE and AdjDE, which is a stat-nerdy way to say score more points than the other team the vast majority of the time. The reason I donāt care about pace is because the maths tell me a ~1 pt improvement in that spread or ~15-20 torvik ranks call it is worth roughly the same as going from last in pace to top 75, in margin terms, which just aināt happening.
I also am pace neutral (except in that I favor a slower pace to a faster pace) but I just donāt think āplaying fasterā is going to do shit for a team that canāt score except make the defense worse.
I think this is true in that we havenāt exerted as much energy on offense, so we have more to conserve for defense. Also, opponents always complain that they get tired playing against our defense.
Edit: what the other guys said better than I did now that I read it.
You said our excellent defense is contributory to our slow pace.
I raised three ways that our excellent defense contributes to slow pace: 1 and 3 are about how focusing on excellent defense contributes to a slow pace on offense. 2 is about how focusing on excellent defense contributes to a slow pace on defense.
Slow pace is an average of (1) our pace on offense and (2) our pace on defense. Both of which are slow.
That help?
As far as your second section, then where does that leave us? How does this team get better? Can Ron just do the ātweak enough stuff so that we run through the ACCā like Tony could? Maybe, we shall see. But my view is thatās a good way for Ron to spend more time remembering what itās like to be a Yankee fan.
We heard every offseason that pace was going up. This season had more rumbling, potentially more corroboration, but the rational response was always to bet against a pace increase given our 15 years of Bennettball.
