NBA Pace and Efficiency 2025-26: Fastest and Slowest Teams Analyzed
Pace measures how many possessions a team uses per 48 minutes. A fast-paced team gets more possessions, which means more opportunities to score — but also more opportunities for the opponent to score. Here is how pace affects winning in the modern NBA.
The fastest teams
Indiana Pacers — 103.8 pace: The Pacers play the fastest in the league. Haliburton pushes the ball in transition at every opportunity, and their roster is built for speed. They score 28% of their points in transition, the highest rate in the NBA. The downside: they also give up the most fast-break points in the league.
Atlanta Hawks — 102.4 pace: Trae Young loves to play fast. His ability to push the ball and find open shooters in transition creates easy baskets. The Hawks' pace is a feature, not a bug — it maximizes Young's playmaking ability.
Sacramento Kings — 101.8 pace: De'Aaron Fox is the fastest player in the NBA with the ball, and the Kings' offense is built around his speed. Their transition offense is elite, but their half-court offense can be inconsistent.
The slowest teams
Cleveland Cavaliers — 96.2 pace: The Cavs play the slowest pace in the league, and it works. Their half-court defense is suffocating, and their offense is efficient enough to win without needing extra possessions. Playing slow reduces variance — fewer possessions means fewer opportunities for upsets.
New York Knicks — 96.8 pace: The Knicks grind games to a halt with their physical defense. They want every game to be a 95-92 slugfest, and they usually get their way.
Does pace matter for winning?
Not really. The correlation between pace and winning percentage is almost zero. Fast teams (Pacers) and slow teams (Cavaliers) can both be elite. What matters is efficiency — how many points you score per possession, not how many possessions you get. A team that scores 115 points on 100 possessions is better than a team that scores 115 points on 105 possessions, even though the raw point totals are the same.
The best teams in the NBA are efficient regardless of pace. The Celtics play at an average pace but have elite efficiency. The Thunder play slightly above average pace with elite efficiency on both ends. Pace is a stylistic choice, not a competitive advantage.