MBB: Duke 76, Wake 74 Post-Game Thread

[robed deity]

The Keels 'fake time out' play would have been legendary if it had resulted in an easy alley-oop slam dunk.
That kind of move tends to be viewed less favorably when the result is a quick turnover rather than a quick score.

Agreed, but you gotta know risk/reward. Same with the early Griffin 3. And many other plays seemingly.

[DevilYouKnow]

Completely disagree. Paolo was fantastic on the boards and had some great assists. Played pretty well, imo.
In the end of games it seems he is often the guy who gets burned on D, though. That is my main concern with him.

He had 0 points and 1 rebound by halftime.

[SkyBrickey]

I'll take the win. Now we get to regroup, get some practice time and get some fresh legs ahead of FSU.

The 2015 team was 22-3 at this point. This team is 22-4. I think we’ve got the car, the engine and the gas in the tank to win #6.

Much like the 2015 team, this team is very, very good when dialed in. I think they will finish stronger as the stakes are raised.

[heyman25]

Keels is a true alpha dog, but sometimes this hurts us. I prefer him being the third option (Paolo, AJ) down the stretch, but sometimes he really forces the issue. The situation gives me flashbacks of RJ taking the final shots over Zion vs. MSU in the elite 8. Hopefully I'm not foreshadowing...

He at times does not have a good angle on his drives. The plays were not there and he forces shots under well defended plays instead of kicking it out. Roach does the same thing.

[goduke03861]

I'll take the win. Now we get to regroup, get some practice time and get some fresh legs ahead of FSU.

The 2015 team was 22-3 at this point. This team is 22-4. I think we’ve got the car, the engine and the gas in the tank to win #6.

Much like the 2015 team, this team is very, very good when dialed in. I think they will finish stronger as the stakes are raised.

I worry about not having an on court driver which is the glaring difference between 22 and 15 up to this point. I hope you're right.

[DukieInBrasil]

I have Covid (not too badly) and I needed that win
One observation is that while Keels is a pretty valuable player, he is a very poor finisher around the hoop at this point. I hope he finds some tricks that work for him because, right now, it's a problem.

Worked for him pretty well in the last game. His issue is more about recognition of when 2 or 3 defenders converge on him. He struggles to recognize that and adjust.

To put in perspective how insanely efficient Mark is playing: until the game-winning tip, Mark was shooting 7-10 FGs, which would have brought is FG% DOWN!!! Instead he shot 8-11, which marginally raised his FG%.

[Duke76]

I'll take the win. Now we get to regroup, get some practice time and get some fresh legs ahead of FSU.

The 2015 team was 22-3 at this point. This team is 22-4. I think we’ve got the car, the engine and the gas in the tank to win #6.

Much like the 2015 team, this team is very, very good when dialed in. I think they will finish stronger as the stakes are raised.

agreed plus for whatever reason we seem to play better away from home, imo

[DevilYouKnow]

I am thinking we dominated WF so thoroughly in the first 30 minutes, that it saved us when we collapsed. That’s my positive spin on it all.

[SkyBrickey]

I worry about not having an on court driver which is the glaring difference between 22 and 15 up to this point. I hope you're right.

Yeah, Tyus Jones was a clutch warrior. But this team has so many more playmakers. It’s different than 2015 and 2010. But what they all have in common is great defense and a variety of strong scoring options. I like our chances…

[Duke79UNLV77]

He at times does not have a good angle on his drives. The plays were not there and he forces shots under well defended plays instead of kicking it out. Roach does the same thing.

Agree, he can be a good passer but doesn’t look to kick out on drives. For example, Griffin was wide open when Keels forced a bad layup attempt late against Miami.

[simplyluvin]

Yikes! Gordon Hayward flashback. Thank God it didn't go in.

I don't understand our performance at home. It's befuddling, as is our ability to put away opponents. Could be tiredness, but I'm inclined to say that it's still a lack of the killer mentality. Hope this is yet another wake up call for the remainder of the season to play with poise for 40 minutes. Nick Saban calls it rat poison...using things to motivate a team and give kerosene to keep the fire in their belly.

[Namtilal]

Problem is, who do you take out? Our best perimeter defender in Keels or our best shooter in Griffin?

Roach isn't as skilled or as athletically talented as the rest of the guys, but he seems to just be more comfortable playing within the flow. This is my opinion and I have nothing to back it up, but that is how it looks to me. He should be in any time our offense turns to wet cement and nothing happens.

I'll take the win. Now we get to regroup, get some practice time and get some fresh legs ahead of FSU.

The 2015 team was 22-3 at this point. This team is 22-4. I think we’ve got the car, the engine and the gas in the tank to win #6.

Much like the 2015 team, this team is very, very good when dialed in. I think they will finish stronger as the stakes are raised.

The 2015 team played a far tougher schedule against much better ACC teams, and they were more versatile and played under control. I agree, we have the potential, but I think '15 would run this team off the court.

[KandG]

Not going to make the excuse that the team is “tired”, but is that 7 games in 18 days now? It’s possible that explains the team being a suboptimal version of itself mentally for significant stretches, especially at home.

Even when our guys aren’t turning it over, they’re managing multiple possessions a game extremely poorly — quick shots, tentative attacking of close outs, poor clock management, driving recklessly into traffic, being weak with the ball, etc.

The brain spasms were distributed all over the team today — people like to pick on Paolo, but 1) Moore took two terrible threes and had that bad turnover at half court, 2) Griffin took a super quick 3 in transition, failed to put up a shot before the shot clock ran out, and attacked a closeout not with a short jumper but by driving recklessly into traffic 3) Keels dribbled the air out of one possession when it was still too early to play the clock, drove into four Wake defenders and got blocked later, and had that terrible sequence with the fake timeout which resulted in the lob turnover that quickly led to a Wake transition basket.

I don’t think it was lack of effort or taking the opponent lightly unlike other home losses — I thought we looked really good for 25 minutes or so. Some credit is due to Wake for continuing to play hard and shooting especially well — that play to end the first half was genuinely great execution, and they benefited from some shooting luck as well which scrambled our defensive matchups.

(If my numbers are correct, Dallas Walton attempts 1.4 threes a game and shoots 28% from three, so having him go 3 for 7 and making life tough for Williams and Theo definitely helped Wake stay in the game and scrambled our defense)

The result was our going with the small lineup (Roach-Keels-Moore-Griffin-Paolo) for a few minutes, but the problem with that group is Wake has the players to take advantage of Roach in height mismatches. To Scheyer’s credit, he brought back Williams quickly realizing our most effective group vs Wake involved Mark, and it ended up paying off even with some dicey moments.

I still wonder if Roach could have been brought in on some possessions down the stretch because as mentioned above, the other guys were not making great decisions. We’re supposed to be a group of multiple playmakers, but at the moment the whole is less than the sum of its parts in crunch time more than it should be.

A win is still a win, and it’s going to be nice to have some extra days off to get the execution to be more consistent. Small plus: thought Griffin was mostly better on defense today, even if he got picked on a few times. Fought harder through screens, stayed with quicker players when he was forced to switch, generally seemed to pay more attention on the defensive end.

[simplyluvin]

I'll take the win. Now we get to regroup, get some practice time and get some fresh legs ahead of FSU.

The 2015 team was 22-3 at this point. This team is 22-4. I think we’ve got the car, the engine and the gas in the tank to win #6.

Much like the 2015 team, this team is very, very good when dialed in. I think they will finish stronger as the stakes are raised.

From your lips to God's ears. It's the dialed in part that I both agree with and am very concerned with. Can we dial in for six straight games? I think so, but the margin for error is much smaller for this team than 2015. Moore might be at least a mild facsimile of Quinn, but we just don't have someone like Tyus.

[uh_no]

The light around the backboard was red with the ball in his hands but the time clock on the TV screen showed 0.1 second left.

Can anyone explain that?

the "time clock on the tv screen" is not official and often lags real time. it cannot be used reliably, and does not represent the actual time. When they get the "official" time, such as after a made basket, there is a camera pointed straight at a duplicate shot clock scoreboard sitting under section 19 that is overlaid onto the video.

The "tv time" is either an OCR of that feed, or an interpretation of the scoreboard clock "data stream" if you will, either of which will naturally lag real time slightly.


At the end of the game, the red ring of lights is literally all that matters. it's in the rules.

[MarkD83]

the "time clock on the tv screen" is not official and often lags real time. it cannot be used reliably, and does not represent the actual time. When they get the "official" time, such as after a made basket, there is a camera pointed straight at a duplicate shot clock scoreboard sitting under section 19 that is overlaid onto the video.

The "tv time" is either an OCR of that feed, or an interpretation of the scoreboard clock "data stream" if you will, either of which will naturally lag real time slightly.


At the end of the game, the red ring of lights is literally all that matters. it's in the rules.

When I re-watched the end of the game, the red light was on and the clock read 0.0 with the ball still in the WF player's hand. In fact he still had the ball about even with his head and had not followed through to release the ball. Still better that it missed than have the refs making a decision.

[Dr. Maturin]

Last second wins over in state rivals usually feel great. This one.. did not. Glad we did just enough to win. But man, that would have been an all timer of a loss. Can anyone remember Duke losing at home after leading by 19? I can't.

The good:

- I thought the defense was really good for 30 minutes. The big exception was defending the 3. We took away their 3s in game 1 but they had tons of open looks tonight.

- Offensive execution was really nice for the middle 20 minutes of the game. We took awhile to adjust to the way they clogged the lane, but we made some nice passes and ran some good offense to build the big lead.

The bad:

- Once again, this team couldn't stay focused for 40 minutes

- Offensive execution down the stretch was just maddening. Poor understanding of time and score, rushed shots, bad turnovers. Yikes.

- I thought Steve Forbes won the battle of adjustments. In game 1, Paolo feasted and Wake didn't bring enough help defense. Tonight, they played more of a pack line style and it largely worked. They also maneuvered on offense to create way more looks from 3 than in the first game.

Last note. In 2019 we survived a scare against Wake a bit like this one. In both games, a game-winning shot rimmed out... although both shots were released just after the buzzer.

[Mak P]

Luck was on our side with that and I'll take it given the luck that was on Miami and UVA side

Personally I think Scheyer thought we would coast to a W once we got up that big. We got a nice little break before FSU and hopefully coach K is alright

[uh_no]

I am thinking we dominated WF so thoroughly in the first 30 minutes, that it saved us when we collapsed. That’s my positive spin on it all.

it was 13-13 10 minutes into the game. that's not a thorough domination by any measure. There was a stretch of 6 straight possessions where all we did was jack 3's with a long 2 by keels in the middle. That was a harbinger of things to come.

[tommy]

Two other thoughts:

1. I know we've been lousy at turning other teams over this year. Through the first 8 minutes or so of the game, it seemed like we turned them over at least 4-5 times and I was thinking "we're gonna turn it around tonight in this very important category -- great!" And then we kinda stopped doing it and ended up only forcing 11 turnovers for the game. Waiting for Kedsy's numbers on this but it felt disappointing that we didn't follow through on a great start in terms of forcing turnovers.

2. The one referee call that really bothered me was on the charge call (was it Paolo?) where Williams took it. They even replayed it and the announcer said "yup it was a charge" but Williams was clearly and obviously in the restricted area. Now it came from a play that was not the typical type of drive that results in a block/charge decision to be made, but I'm not aware of any reason why the restricted area rule would not apply. Does anyone know differently in terms of the rule? Otherwise it was a big blown call as a block there on Williams would've been huge.