MBB: Duke 63, Wake 56 Postgame thread

I think one of the turning points was Flagg hitting the three after a long drought in the 2nd half.
The "Every bucket" video really highlights this. It went from a bucket putting us up 15 at the end of the 1st half to Coop's 3 that brought us back to a tie with 11:54 left in the 2nd half. 🤯

The positive is we won the game and we are unlikely to have a worse 8 minutes of offense for the rest of the season.
 
Another great game by Flagg. Kon and Mason were awesome as well.
Yeah Kon had a rough game handling the ball - 5 TOs.

But he also made a lot of plays and stuffed the stat sheet. 15pts, 9reb, 3ast. 3-7 from 3. He led the team in rebounding. Really shows the effort he was putting in today.

I would love to see Kon drive more and pull up from 6-8 feet in the lane. He always has nice separation on that shot and I bet he's making 80% on the year. I think that's a high quality shot in this Duke offense and I don't know why he's not hunting it more on the PNR.
 
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
To be fair Flagg got fouled on at least three of those turnovers.
 
Yeah Kon had a rough game handling the ball - 5 TOs.

But he also made a lot of plays and stuffed the stat sheet. 15pts, 9reb, 3ast. 3-7 from 3. He led the team in rebounding. Really shows the effort he was putting in today.

I would love to see Kon drive more and pull up from 6-8 feet in the lane. He always has nice separation on that shot and I bet he's making 80% on the year. I think that's a high quality shot in this Duke offense and I don't know why he's not hunting it more on the PNR.
Cooper and Kon. Batman and Robin.
 
Agree with all of this—though I imagine some of why this is happening more lately is Maliq's absence, particularly defensively. When Khaman leaves the paint, Maliq is almost always there as a secondary rim protector.
I don’t think they spend a lot of time together on the court.

But Maliq’s absence has potentially changed how aggressive we can expect ManMan to be. And perhaps the increase in minutes leads to fatigue, which in turn lends itself to mental/physical mistakes.
 
ManMan needs to leave the post regularly on offense to open the lane for others to drive. And we have the #2 defense; clearly it's working!

-jk
I think hanging out in the home position (near the baseline right outside of the lane) lends itself to a pretty clear lane, too, and puts ManMan’s defender in a position where he may need to pick his poison when one of our other players exploits that clear lane.

But I hear ya.
 
Never in doubt lol.
At the 10 minute mark in the second half I was shell shocked.Duke just lost their composure. 3/20 from guards is just abominable shooting. It will give the Coaches a ton of material to instruct better outcomes with better decisions. Khaman needs to get some advice. 2 straight games he has not been productive. Pat was a lift off the bench. Mason Gillis was sensational for Duke . Big contributions to winning this game. Kon needs to find his handle. He had some clutch plays but too many turnovers. Tyrese just missed too many opportunities to score. This will be a learning experience.
 
At the 10 minute mark in the second half I was shell shocked.Duke just lost their composure. 3/20 from guards is just abominable shooting. It will give the Coaches a ton of material to instruct better outcomes with better decisions. Khaman needs to get some advice. 2 straight games he has not been productive. Pat was a lift off the bench. Mason Gillis was sensational for Duke . Big contributions to winning this game. Kon needs to find his handle. He had some clutch plays but too many turnovers. Tyrese just missed too many opportunities to score. This will be a learning experience.
Yea Kon was fouled on at least half of his turnovers too.
 
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