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Pace. Why does it differ so drastically from one team to the next? Obviously, the coach influences a lot what philosophy his team is going to adopt and it permeates to pace. You know that Mike D'Antoni's team is going to run. Same with Don Nelson's. More running, more scoring opportunities. But how about defence? It has long been believed that running teams don't play defence very well. So, how does pace correlate to team defence?
First, I wanted to delineate 3 levels of Pace Factor (the number of possessions per 48 minutes by a team). Since there is no definitive division, I randomly assigned levels relative to popular beliefs, notably:
Level 1 - Slow-paced teams: Teams with a Pace Factor of 90.50 or lower
Level 2 - Medium-paced teams: Teams with a Pace Factor between 90.51 and 93.99
Level 3 - Fast-Paced teams: Teams with a Pace Factor of 94.00 or higher
Once these levels have been defined, it was easy to go back 10 years and analyze the data. Note: Defensive Rating refers to the number of points a team allows per 100 possessions.
Slow-paced teams
Every year for the past 10 years, except the 2001-2002 season, the slow-paced teams beat the league average Defensive Ratingg. Of the 111 teams covered, 77 (or 69%) played better defence than the league average. Even some of the teams that did not make the cut were very close to the average.
Medium-paced teams
Every year for the past 10 years, except the 2001-2002 season, the medium-paced teams failed to beat the league average DRtg. Of the 138 teams covered, only 52 (or 37%) played better defence than the league average.
Fast-paced teams
Except for 2005-2006, where the Phoenix Suns were the only fast-paced team, the fast-paced teams failed to beat the league average DRtg every single year. Of the 41 teams covered, only 19 (or 46%) played better defence than the league average.
So, what do we take away from this? It seems to me that playing conservative and slow allows your team to set itself in the half-court and defend 5-against-5. Running teams are prone to fast-breaks where points are accumulated easily by the opponent, and the hybrid (medium-paced) teams are not much better. In fact, of the 111 teams that played at a slow pace, 79 made the playoffs (71%), a very good percentage. In other words, only 81 teams out of 179 medium- and fast-paced teams made the playoffs (45%).
What about the Raptors? Last year, they moved from Sam Mitchell's slow-paced mode to Jay Triano's medium-paced mode, to disastrous effect. This year, the teams seems to be going at an even quicker pace. Through 8 preseason games, the Raptors' Pace Factor was at 95.42.
Fans prefer the fast pace because it allows for nice transition dunks and quick shots, offensive rebounding, etc. But that is not what history seems to like. Slow, boring, basketball seems to be the way to winning. 
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