Pacing places a high demand on intellectual functioning and has been found useful for classification of athletes with intellectual impairments (II). This may also be true in open-loop sports like basketball. The current study aimed to investigate the pacing behaviour of basketball players with and without II. Using time-motion analysis, the activity of elite basketball players with II (n = 37) and amateur players without II (n = 34) was coded into four movement categories over eight periods of each game: standing, walking, running and jumping. Following two-way ANOVA, an effect of group showed differences between groups in duration and frequency of the movement categories within each period of the games. Additionally, an effect of time suggested that players in both groups paced their performances. However, no interaction was found, indicating that pacing may not be different between groups. In conclusion, the results suggest that due to the dynamic nature of basketball, the included players paced more intuitively by responding to environmental cues and using less deliberate planning. The players with II demonstrated slower games, which may be due to an impaired ability to make quick moment-to-moment deliberate decisions. These skills should be further studied in the context of evidence-based classification.
Keywords: Disability; cognition; decision-making; regulation of energy expenditure; team sports.