Numbers Game: Spurs pick up pace, pick up wins

Is it a surprise that, at 15-3, the San Antonio Spurs have the best record in the NBA?

For those who thought the Miami Heat were going to win 70 games it probably is. Still, though we thought there were at least four teams better than the Spurs, we knew never to dismiss the silver and black. The Spurs taught us years ago that as long as Tim Duncan is around and healthy, they can put the right pieces around him to stay near the top of the Western Conference.

The Spurs normally don't play this well early in the season. As each day has gone by, there's been a new note that this is their best 10-game start, their best 12-game start, etc. But the real surprise in San Antonio is not how fast the Spurs have started, but how fast they've played.

For years, the Spurs have been thought of as the anti-Suns, the slow and methodical foil to the run-and-fun system led by Steve Nash. But this season, San Antonio is actually running more than Phoenix. Through Wednesday, the Spurs rank fourth in the league by scoring 17.9 fast break points per 100 possessions. The Suns rank seventh at 16.6.

For the first time since they drafted Duncan in 1997, San Antonio is playing at a pace faster than the league average. They rank eighth in pace, averaging 96.7 possessions per 48 minutes.

One assumption you might make is that the Spurs are playing faster because Duncan is playing a career-low 29.7 minutes per game. But they're actually playing faster with Duncan on the floor (97.9 possessions per 48 minutes) than they are with him on the bench (94.9). Last season, they were slower with Duncan on the floor.

Even in the half-court, the Spurs are playing differently. They're shooting more threes than they ever have, with 25.8 percent of their shots (the fifth-highest rate in the league) coming from beyond the arc, and for good reason. They lead the NBA in 3-point percentage, connecting on 40.7 percent. If that stood up through the remainder of the season, it would be the third-highest rate in NBA history.

Clearly, the faster pace and increase in threes is working. Despite Wednesday's ugly loss to the Clippers, they rank third in the league in offensive efficiency, scoring 108.9 points per 100 possessions. It's the highest they've ranked in 10 years.

With the big three healthy, Tony Parker playing as efficiently as ever and Richard Jefferson doing what he was supposed to do last year, this is the most offensive talent the Spurs have had since their last title. Combine the faster pace with the increased efficiency, and the Spurs are scoring 5.2 points per game more than they ever have in the Duncan era.

Ranking seventh defensively, San Antonio is one of five teams in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. If you ask Gregg Popovich, though, the defense has to get better. In each of their four championship seasons, the Spurs have allowed less than a point per possession and ranked in the top three.

It's possible that the increased pace has hurt the Spurs defensively. By a metric that divides opponent fast break points by opponent steals, only two teams have a worse transition defense. By the same measure, they ranked 26th last season.

Where they've really fallen off defensively is defending the 3-point line. After ranking eighth in opponent 3-point percentage last season, the Spurs rank 28th this year, allowing almost as many threes as they make.

The Spurs' new running game starts with stops. They rank ninth in the league in forcing turnovers and they're fourth-best on the defensive glass. If they can just contest better on the perimeter, they can be better on both ends. That's a scary thought.

In the same way that the Heat aren't as bad as their record indicates, the Oklahoma City Thunder aren't as good. The Thunder are tied with the Lakers for the seventh-best record in the NBA, but they have just the 14th best point differential on a per-possession basis.

With Wednesday's triple-overtime win in New Jersey, the Thunder are now 10-1 in games decided by seven points or less, a rate that will be impossible to keep up. According to their point differential, their record should be 10-9 instead of 13-6.

The good news is that the Thunder have rebounded from a slow start. Through the first nine games, they had a point differential of minus-4.3 points per 100 possessions, but over the last 10, they're plus-5.5, with improvement on both ends of the floor.

With seven teams all within three games in the loss column of the top spot in the conference, it looks like it will be another season where seeds won't matter much in the West.

But of all the teams that are at least five games over .500, which have been playing the best?

And of the teams that are below .500, which has the best shot at nabbing that last playoff spot?

Dallas, L.A. and San Antonio have been the best teams statistically, but Dallas has played the toughest schedule of the three. And L.A. has played such an easy schedule that the Lakers rank as the fourth team in the West by this measure.

Further down, we see that, having played the conference's toughest schedule thus far, the Suns are in the best shape when it comes to that last playoff spot.

All stats are through Wednesday, Dec. 1.

The numbers above were compiled with the help of the NBA and StatsCube.

John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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