MBB: Duke79, Wake 68 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Offensive rebounding was good. Disappointed we didn't get to the line more. Hurt was fantastic.

Starting to see how this team could become very good - IF Moore can find his rhythm, Hurt is playing well, we get Jalen back, the backcourt can apply pressure... things could look bright moving forward.

[Clocktower]

I think it’s Hurt’s and Goldwire’s team these days, but Steward is coming on in a big way. Love those two scrambling put-back buckets along with his all around game.

[DukieInBrasil]

Career high from Hurt with 26!!!! and he did a little bit of everything else, too.
DJ Steward really starting to assert himself on offense, at least from 2pt land.
Roach again playing well in the PG role.
But can we give it up for J-Gold?!?!?! 14 pts, 5 asts, 0 turns, 5 rebs, and 3 steals!!!!! He's become a wonderful player to watch.

2 guys who didn't score much or shoot well, but who both did a little bit of everything else, literally with at least 1 stat in each category: Wendell Moore and Jaemyn Brakefied. Those sorts of contributions are a big part of winning basketball.
Joey also showed some verve, driving to the basket and scoring, and perhaps an ill-advised pass in the paint. He pumped faked on the 3 both times to drive, so...maybe that's his game now?

[Billy Dat]

With about 10 to go, right about when Dan Bonner said that whichever team goes on a spurt is going to win we started to take it up a notch. The offensive boards were huge during that stretch as we got a bunch of second chance points and it fueled our defense. We steadily pushed it from 3-5-7-9-13 and mostly stopped fouling and got several steals. K jumping off the bench after the Goldwire lay-up after 2 offensive boards was classic.

Hurt was a scoring stud despite the foul trouble. He was better on the defensive end in the last 10 minutes but wasn't great on that end up to that point. I guess that's true of the whole squad, but I especially thought that Roach's defense on Williamson was key in that last quarter. Goldwire's defense was awesome the whole way. DJ also competed hard on that end. Despite Wendell's offensive regression, his last quarter defense and rebounding were very big. Hurt-Wendell and the 3 guards were the closers once again.

Hopefully Jalen comes back soon as we need some more size. Brake hasn't played well these past 2 games. Also, Mark Williams must be doing something good in practice to be getting these starts but they aren't letting him play through his jitters.

Solid win which started very meh and continued to be so until that last 10. Let's keep building.

[SavDukeGrad]

Hurt and the offensive rebounding were outstanding. DJ Steward was very good as well - love his aggressiveness.

Goldwire was his usual steady self; Roach too for the most part. Our defensive intensity was much better in the 2nd half, especially the last 8 minutes.

Unfortunately, Moore reverted to his pre BC self. I hope he can continue to improve.

But too many turnovers in the first half. And we can’t send an opposing team to the line that many times and expect to win very often.

Interestingly, I remember that was where Wake excelled last year - getting to the free throw line. Even though that was a team with a different coach and mostly different players.

[Stray Gator]

The main reason this game stayed so close for so long was because Wake was, until the final 10 minutes, hitting shots at a percentage well above their normal rate in every category. If I'm reading the play-by-play correctly, they hit their first three-point shot in the second half, but then proceeded to miss their next eight attempts to finish the game at only 30%. I believe that regression to the norm for Wake on offense was the primary factor that ultimately turned the game in Duke's favor.

[simplyluvin]

This team has a chance to be good, but let's see how we do on the road against better opponents. Need to play with defensive intensity the whole - or most of - 40 minutes, but I liked what we did in the second half. Hurt is becoming a real star, and Steward and Roach payed well today. JGold has developed in to a steady, solid, if unspectacular veteran player who plays with constant energy.

Wendell is still a work-in-progress, but we saw a glimpse last game of what he's capable of.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

This team has a chance to be good, but let's see how we do on the road against better opponents. Need to play with defensive intensity the whole - or most of - 40 minutes, but I liked what we did in the second half. Hurt is becoming a real star, and Steward and Roach payed well today. JGold has developed in to a steady, solid, if unspectacular veteran player who plays with constant energy.

Wendell is still a work-in-progress, but we saw a glimpse last game of what he's capable of.

I feel like our team has a pretty slim margin for error. We can't take anyone lightly this year. We can't play half a game and win against good teams. But, if we get our rhythm we could do good things.

Assuming we get to play more than two games a month.

[BlueDevilStop]

Game recap.

Five observations.

Player of the game.

https://bluedevilstop.com/strong-sec...r-wake-forest/

[BlueDevilStop]

I think it’s Hurt’s and Goldwire’s team these days, but Steward is coming on in a big way. Love those two scrambling put-back buckets along with his all around game.

Steward has been impressive. He contributes in a number of different ways and has been doing an excellent job on the glass. Really like what I am seeing out of the back court trio of Steward, Roach, and Goldwire.

[SavDukeGrad]

When we ratcheted up the defensive intensity mid way through the 2nd half, I thought Goldwire and Roach took it up a notch. They prevented Williamson’s penetration down the stretch, which had been killing us.

[chrishoke]

3-0 in the ACC feels like fools gold.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

3-0 in the ACC feels like fools gold.

Acceptable

[FerryFor50]

This team has a chance to be good, but let's see how we do on the road against better opponents. Need to play with defensive intensity the whole - or most of - 40 minutes, but I liked what we did in the second half. Hurt is becoming a real star, and Steward and Roach payed well today. JGold has developed in to a steady, solid, if unspectacular veteran player who plays with constant energy.

Wendell is still a work-in-progress, but we saw a glimpse last game of what he's capable of.

I don’t think “road games” have the same impact this year. It’s basically just different colors, lighting and a bit of travel. No crowds to worry about.

[FerryFor50]

Defense in the first half was not great. Some of that was communication. Some was missed rotations. And the rest had to do with sloppy ball handling leading to runouts.

2nd half, it looked like they may have found a combination that works - zone press and the falling back to regular switching man to man. Helps that Wake started to cool off from 3.

Hurt is really talented on offense, and the team needs to continue to play through him even when Jalen returns. But it’s good that they are figuring things out now. Jalen coming back will boost the defense, rebounding and size.

[Kedsy]

Once again, thanks to Comcast and the ACC network, I was unable to see the game. I did notice from the box score that only six of our players got 8+ minutes, which is something considering at the beginning of the season a lot of people around here were talking about how deep we were. It's a good thing the schedule has been kind to us so far since our three ACC wins are by 10, 1, and 9 points over Pomeroy's #89, #100, and #121 teams, the latter two games at home. Finally, I saw that Jaemyn Brakefield went scoreless for the 2nd straight game (17.5 mpg in those two games) but he partially made up for that by getting 5 steals combined in those two games, which is kind of amazing since in the previous five games he'd been all offense and no defense, with a total of one steal.

The pace of this game was very slow (64.9 possessions). But our offensive efficiency was our best of the season, barely ahead of our other game that was really slow (Notre Dame). Check out this small table comparing our pace in our seven games vs. our unadjusted offensive efficiency:

Pace	Unadj oRtg
62.3	1.20
64.9	1.22
69.3	1.10
73.5	1.13
75.0	0.91
76.4	1.06
77.6	0.89

Maybe we should try to play slow every game, eh?

But at least we're undefeated in league play. Now to the stats:

OFFENSE

Possessions: 64.9 (very slow; see above)
oRtg: 1.22 (1.23 adjusted; best oRtg of the season; our top three offensive performances have come in our past three games)
eFG%: 58.2% (very strong)
3pt%: 33.3% (barely adequate)
2pt%: 64.7.9% (outstanding; 2nd best of the season)
%threes: 44.3% (way too high)
FT rate: 16.4% (very poor; our 4th game out of 7 with a FT rate under 17%)
OR%: 46.9% (great; best OR% of the season, beating our previous best in our previous game, and only our 3rd game at 35% or above)
TO%: 21.6% (lousy)
a/to: 1.21:1
%assisted: 54.8%
fast break pts: 12 (15.2% of points; not great, but OK considering how slow this game was generally)

DEFENSE

dRtg: 1.05 (1.02 adjusted; yuck, that's four straight clunkers on defense)
eFG%: 52.1% (related to the above, our 4th straight bad performance here)
3pt%: 30.0% (not bad, but without seeing the game I wonder if this was partially luck)
2pt%: 57.0% (terrible; worst of the season)
%threes: 41.7% (considering the above two percentages, this number is why I think we may have gotten lucky on D)
FT rate: 43.8% (a foul performance, so to speak)
DR%: 71.4% (thankfully back over 70%, as we have been in every game except our previous game against BC)
TO%: 23.1% (our saving grace on defense; 6th straight game over 19% and 4th game out of five over 23%)
a/to: 0.53:1 (lowest opposing a/to of the season; every opponent we've faced has been at or below 1:1)
%assisted: 36.4%
stl%: 15.4% (strong)
blk%: 8.3% (14.3% of 2pt shots) (not bad, for this team)
fast break pts: 5 (7.3% of points; good)


We're 16th in the country in unadjusted steals%, and thank goodness because we haven't done much else right on defense the past four games (well, we're above average at defensive rebounding, except against BC). Our overall offense, especially our offensive rebounding, seems to be coming around, though we still turn it over too much and don't get to the line enough. A work in progress, although we do seem to be potentially heading for a six-man rotation.

[wsb3]

I don’t think “road games” have the same impact this year. It’s basically just different colors, lighting and a bit of travel. No crowds to worry about.

Totally agree. Espeicially at Cameron..I was thinking when we came back vs BC how loud it would have been.I don't think it is a 1 point win with the crowd energy..

[uh_no]

eh.

Some good, some bad. unfortunately we haven't really built on the ND performance, and this game was exactly in line with how we were expected to perform. we dropped in KP. Wake is not a good team.

KP has us as a first weekend tournament team, and that seems to match the eye test.

Obviously time to get better, and I'm not saying "it's over" or anything, but I think where we are, and what we have, my hopes are not especially high.

IMO our sights should be set on hanging an ACC banner, and whatever happens in the tournament, happens.

I know a lot of people are sold on johnson as a silver bullet. I'm longing for his return, as well, and think we will be at worst more flexible, I don't think he is really the missing the piece that would put us over the top.

[chrishoke]

Coach K's press conference, great as usual, but I particularly appreciated his comments on the events of this week - we are so fortunate that he is our coach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX8HQ_gNq6E