Its called quick thinking.
Quick thinking has nothing to do with creating a clone in a blink of an eye and catching sword with bare hands without hurting himself.
He may have used shunshin jutsu which would have increased his speed. It doesnt mean that he is fast.
Lol so what? Guys like A or Itachi are also relying on their Shunshins. Minato is relying on Shunshin and FTG. Does that mean they arent fast?
He is not noted in any way to be fast by any character or by kishimoto in his base form.
But he has proven to be quite fast when he saved Sakura. Feats > words.
He defeated them becuase of that.
That doesn't mean he is shikamaru's level of intellect as he does not continually perform these acts on a regular basis.
Who said he is on Shikamarus level? He isnt, but he still is very good strategist. Besides, hes coming with good strategies in every one of his battles.
He doesn't have to prepare any battlefield. He is very well capable of, and demonstrated quite a few times, thinking up plans during battle.
He woudnt have time to do that while facing Naruto and hole bunch of his shadow clones.
Also, each naruto clone is not very smart as they are usually dispersed easily by any skilled shinobi so their effectiveness is only useful against less competent foes.
And Shikamaru is one of those less competent foes. His shadow is far from being enough to catch and hold everyone of Narutos clones.
There is nothing that indicates that he is any smarter than Guy, Orochimaru, or Pain
Actually, manga itself indicates that. He has good strategic feats, they doesnt.
Orochimaru is actually another tactical genius
Oro being a tactical genius? He has no feats in that area. He had been constantly trolled thoughout his life.
naruto never defeated using sheer intellect
Nobody would be able to defeat someone using only sheer intellect.
Naruto's intelligence is not that high compared to other highly skill shinobi such as Orochimaru, Shikamaru, Kakashi, Neji, Kakuzu, Kabuto, Tobi, Sasuke, Itachi, Minato, etc.
Naruto is stupid when in daily life, but during combat hes very smart.
He simply isn't capable of thinking on their level.
Manga proves you wrong. Naruto outsmarted Kakuzu and Neji.
He has never done so on a regular basis like Kakashi or Shikamaru or any other skilled ninja noted for their abilities and/or intellect.
Naruto proves his intellect during every one of battles. He has proven to be quite fast, have good Taijutsu and great skill with shadow clones and transformation jutsus. Its enough to put his in Jounin tier.
Even asuma showed a great amount of intelligence and insight against Kakuzu and Hidan
He never displayed anything better than Naruto, both in intelligence and strenght.