MBB: Duke 63, Wake 56 Postgame thread

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

It was a very tough and physical game. Major muggings were let go and touch fouls called. Hard to make sense of what was happening.

I agree that both Gillis and Ngongba had important minutes. I add to that Kneuppel as he has constantly hammered but was strong in the face of it. Five turnovers weren't great but he handled the ball a lot and made a lot of smart defensive plays.

Proctor played good defense but had a very weak offensive game.

We missed Brown. Hope he gets back soon.

Flagg is our go to guy but also was impacted by the physical play. Seven turnovers attributed to him. I dislike the approach that has Flagg up beyond the 3 pt line dribbling the ball for 10 seconds before making any offensive move. Still his 24 points were critical for us.

This was not pretty but is a road win against a good ACC team.
 
I’m claiming an assist for this win. Once we got down 4 I left the couch and sat at the table instead to watch while eating dinner. That coincided with us turning it around. I even told my kid, with a minute to go, “when we win this, I’m going to go back and watch the last 8 minutes again.” I was confident.
 
Definitely relieved to get out of there with a W. The game was slipping away when we got down by 6, and I agree that some past Duke teams wouldn't have had the resolve to turn the momentum. Credit Wake for a good game plan to take us out of our comfort zone, they didn't even shoot well themselves but stayed right there with us.

We showed we can gut out an ugly, close win which many were wondering after so many blowouts. Really need Maliq back to be the best version of ourselves.
 
My thoughts:

1. Slooooooopy with the ball. Against a tenacious group like Wake, that is a bad formula.

2. We took good shots, just didn’t make them. Sometimes that happens.

3. Great work on the boards. Really great.

4. Loved seeing the team respond to Wake’s run.

5. Gillis was huge. Game changing 3s.

6. Proctor’s shot wasn’t there, but he did great work on Sallis.

7. Scrappy work from Ngongba. Reid is a load and crafty, but Pat gave solid minutes. He has such good hands.

8. FTs were big. We made ours, they didn’t.

9. Nice to see Flagg settle down in the second half and help us regain the lead and build a cushion.

Very important win. With UNC and Clemson on the horizon, it is nice to bank this win. Continuing to chip away at the schedule until Broen returns!
 
Just rewatched the stretch to see how we turned it around down 45-39 and with the crowd in a frenzy until we were up 51-47 and back in control. A 12-2 Duke run.

The zone was the big change and really triggered the shift in momentum. Great move Jon.

Gillis with 3 huge plays. An offensive rebound he battled for. Hitting a 3. And a defensive rebound where he threw it off the defender falling out of bounds.

Cooper and Kon attacked the rim for easy buckets capped off by a Cooper drive and dunk.

Gutsy stretch by Duke to make that comeback.
 
Gutsy gutsy win. I expected a very difficult game and we got one. Some of our earlier season offensive woes surfaced again today. We struggled to penetrate so took a lot of set 3's.We were pretty static and eventually relied on Cooper seeing over the D to make some passes.

A lot of this was due to a tough, tough Wake defense.

I just hope that as we face elite defenses we can develop more fluid play.

The DRtg of our opponents is #56. We have feasted on weaker defenses. Need to elevate against tougher defenses.
 
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

It was a very tough and physical game. Major muggings were let go and touch fouls called. Hard to make sense of what was happening.

I agree that both Gillis and Ngongba had important minutes. I add to that Kneuppel as he has constantly hammered but was strong in the face of it. Five turnovers weren't great but he handled the ball a lot and made a lot of smart defensive plays.

Proctor played good defense but had a very weak offensive game.

We missed Brown. Hope he gets back soon.

Flagg is our go to guy but also was impacted by the physical play. Seven turnovers attributed to him. I dislike the approach that has Flagg up beyond the 3 pt line dribbling the ball for 10 seconds before making any offensive move. Still his 24 points were critical for us.

This was not pretty but is a road win against a good ACC team.
Brown likely out for long time , maybe be back for ACC tourney
 
That and nobody from Duke played any minutes. 😳

That's actually typical at ESPN immediately after the game. They don't update the number of minutes while the game is in progress, and it takes a couple of minutes to add that info.

First time I've ever seen the 0s, though.
 
I don’t think anyone has mentioned this so far…
Yes, we had our worst output of the year at the first 8-10 minutes (? I think) of the 2nd half, going 1-19 for a stretch - yikes…. BUT…

I feel that we REALLY blew our chance to break the game wide open in the first 10-12 minutes of the
1st half. Our D held Wake to under 10 points during that stretch. We honestly should have been up 20 at that point, but we executed very poorly on O. Our shooting really struggled all game, but big buckets by Mason, Tyrese, and Cooper saved the day!
 
5 thoughts...

1. I was actually fine with Wake coming back in the 2nd. I wanted to see how Duke would respond. Would they panic or fold or ? Nope. In a hostile environment in an ugly, low scoring, physical game, with an opponent that NEEDED the win for their tournament resume, they righted the ship, took the lead and solidly held on in the last minutes for the road win. Realistically, Duke is very likely going to lose a game in the ACCs. It could have been this one, but it wasn't. Thumbs up!

2. Gills' most critical game in a Duke uni by far. I liked how much he seemed to be talking on the court, keeping the team focused. Save for another wild pass for a turnover earlier in the game, he was very solid. And I think his late 3 really shifted the complexion of the final minute from a back and forth game to a Wake-must-catch-up game.

3. Except for his 7 TOs, Flagg was brilliant again. He's such a weapon. But Crispin seemed to be making an excuse for him, saying he only had so many TOs because he handled the ball so much. If your PG had 7 TOs, he wouldn't be your PG for long. Even if this was somehow in the staff's plan to keep putting the ball in his hands so much, Flagg needs to limit those TOs...

4. Ngongba's minutes were big. Not exactly why he played quite so much more than Maluach, who I thought was being reasonably effective on D. But Ngongba filled in admirably defending Reid. He's not playing well enough (yet?) to threaten Brown's minutes when he returns. But this performance has to give him confidence, and perhaps give the staff more confidence playing him when needed.

5. Happy to beat Wake at Joel. I'm sure Proctor was tired of losing to them there, court storming or not. I sure was.

9F
I think you hit on all the key points. Gillis had two really clutch threes in the last few minutes, and Cooper's three stopped the bleeding early in the second half when we were reeling.

I don't mind terribly a lot of Cooper's TOs, as he was being aggressive. What I really didn't like was we played "Cooper ball" in the first ten minutes of the second half with really bad ball movement and spacing. Even when the offense runs through Coop, as it should, we needed a lot more movement of the ball and without the ball. But again, Coop carried us.

In any case, glad for the win, and let's use this as confidence that we can pull one out when we overall don't have it on offense. I mean, if Proctor shoots even close to normal, we win comfortably.
 
Back
Top