With the Pacers in town to face the Knicks on Wednesday night, it’s a fitting time to talk about “pace.”
Too many casual bettors struggle to make successful Over/Under calls because they don’t give proper respect to pace. In analytics terms, that’s the estimated number of possessions per team in any given game. Fast-paced track meets have a lot of possessions per team. Half-court battles have many fewer.
So far in the young season, the Knicks are showing some early pace-related tendencies that might be exploitable by bettors. As is often the case with young teams trying to find their way, the Knicks tend to get pulled along by their opponents. They’ll run with runners.
They’ll settle into a slow half-court game against plodders.
You may have watched the Knicks’ win over the Nets on Monday night. The Nets are one of the slowest teams in the NBA. That was a very methodical game by current standards (92 possessions per team), and it stayed Under the market total. The Big Apple’s two NBA entries already have played twice this season. Both games stayed Under.
On the other hand, the Hawks are playing at a breakneck pace this season. The Knicks’ season opener versus the Hawks flew Over.
See if you can spot the threshold so far for the Knicks in terms of per-team possession counts. Listed below are analytics-based possession estimates for each game. I’ve also included the Over/Under result. The Knicks have played seven games so far in the 2018-19 season, in this order:
Keeping apace with pace data
| Game | Poss./Team | O/U |
|---|---|---|
| vs. Hawks | 114.0 | Over |
| at Nets | 92.8 | Under |
| vs. Celtics | 99.3 | Under |
| at Bucks | 101.9 | Over |
| at Heat | 99.6 | Under |
| vs. Warriors | 100.2 | Over |
| vs. Nets | 92.0 | Under |
At the moment, the Knicks grade out at a slightly below-average pace overall. Versus the market, the Knicks have played three Overs and four Unders. The breaking point above is right at 100 possessions per team.
- 100 possessions per team or more: 3-0 to the Over (Hawks, Bucks, Warriors), all of whom are currently in the upper half of the league in pace factor this season).
- 99.9 possessions per team or fewer: 0-4 to the Under (Nets twice, Celtics, Heat).
Let’s see if the tendency holds true again Wednesday. The Pacers are playing very slow basketball this season, even slower than the Nets.
If you’re wondering how to track pace factor and other analytics stats, the “Hollinger Team Stats” page in the NBA stats section at espn.com is very helpful. At a glance, you see season-to-date pace averages, offensive and defensive efficiency, plus rebound and turnover rate. Each category is sortable if you want to track league rankings.
