Playing fast is such an overused meaningless expression in today's basketball. Everyone wants to play fast. Of course. Why not? If you can get a good shot quickly, why roll the dice and hope you can get a good shot later? When, there's a chance you will settle for a contested one?
Problem is, you only play as fast as the other team lets you. Man, did we play fast again AK-Pin Bluff and Chicago State. Amazingly you can beat teams down the court if you are faster and stronger than them. Problem is when you get kicked in the teeth because the other team's transition defense nullifies your dreams of speed. So you either end up playing good old 5 on 5, or you jack up bad shots. We saw a lot of the latter last year.
You can only say you want to play fast if you are going to be a Mike D'Antoni type of team. Fast and furious. Fast, regardless of opponent, period of play, etc.
Otherwise, all you are doing is catching up to what good coaches understood a long, long time ago. Push the transition tempo. It might give you 2-6 extra points a game, even if you are not that good a team. It might, additionally, give you open 3's, which, at a 33% clip is just as good as shooting 50% from two. Otherwise, and if the opportunity is not there, run the offense and explore your relative advantages.
It reminds me of finding out that a 3 after an offensive rebound is a good shot. It's open, it has a high chance of another offensive rebound. It was not always understood, but this is not 1980 (for the offensive rebound 3) or 2010 (for the "play fast").
Oh, and there's VA, pretty successful playing at a snail's pace. Knowing that playing fast requires a deeper rotation, relying less on your "best 5" players. And, while not giving up open fast breaks, just choosing to preserve energy.