The stats about the Spurs slow pace is being interpreted incorrectly.
If you watch the Spurs games, you'll see them always running the ball up the court. There's no slow pace. What is slow is the time it takes the Spurs to score. That's because they are busy passing the ball pack and forth, side to side to tire out the defender. I gather this is the PATFO game plane, to have the opponents work much more on defense. It is hard to tell what PATFO is up to, but this kind of makes logical sense. You really want the opponent to spend a lot of effort in defense. That is, having to guard the paint all the way to the 3 point line and having to chase guards running all over the place.