MBB: Duke 63, Wake 56 Postgame thread

Wake's possessions against the zone:

- Sallis airball 3 with Flagg in his face

- Harris made midrange jumper - as you say, they attacked the nail. Still, Harris is just 6/17 on long 2s this season. That's a shot you live with.

- Johnson clanked deep 3

- Harris midrange jumper - no good this time

- Sallis on the bassline off a feed from Hildreth. He gets close the the basket, but misses after a nice contest from Pat

- Hildreth open corner 3 - really the only bad possession we played out of the zone. Cooper was out of position, then tried to find his spot in the zone, leading to Gillis being left to deal with two Wake players. Thankfully we got away with it as the 3 missed.

I don't expect to see much more of this zone, especially when Maliq comes back. But it sure worked tonight.
Remember what made the Syracuse zone so tough? Boeheim always had long defenders who were tough to shoot over. We are the longest team in college basketball. I like the zone as a change of pace for a few possessions. I hope we do see it again when we need it.
 
I don’t think this is any new info.
Jon said “extended period of time”
I figure we will hope for early March. Anything earlier is gravy, but not expected.
How have we gone from "out for several weeks" to "getting on the court this week" to Brown being out for 2+ months?

It took the Dodgers about 8 years to finally acknowledge the disproportionate number of injuries to our pitchers, and they are digging into what they are doing wrong. Would love to hear Duke will do something similar for what appears to be a disproportionate number of lower body injuries over the past 2 decades.
 
Remember what made the Syracuse zone so tough? Boeheim always had long defenders who were tough to shoot over. We are the longest team in college basketball. I like the zone as a change of pace for a few possessions. I hope we do see it again when we need it.
Agreed, especially in physical games where (a) a zone can help us manage our energy and (b) we may experience foul trouble.
 
I must have missed an announcement. I thought he was back on the practice court this week. I thought we were still holding out hope for UNC I.
I don’t think there was an announcement except for the initial one. I haven’t heard anything about him practicing this week— maybe I missed it.
My original interpretation was in the “many weeks to months” timeframe based on body language, wording, and the nature of the injury.
I would sure like to be wrong. I’d love to have him back by Clemson or Illinois.
 
Remember what made the Syracuse zone so tough? Boeheim always had long defenders who were tough to shoot over. We are the longest team in college basketball. I like the zone as a change of pace for a few possessions. I hope we do see it again when we need it.
The Cuse zone was very well coached and positional. As you'd expect from a primary defense.

We are long, but I did not think our zone looked particularly well positioned. We had our wings in awkward no-man's-land at times when one side was empty (this was Kon at least twice).

Our switch to zone played a role in standing them up. I thought it got them thinking a little and stunted their momentum. We got away with some missed shots by them. It worked out but I didn't love the look of it as a longer term option unless we tighten the screws. Jon basically said this in his presser too.

- Chillin
 
Seems like a lot of speculation going on. Maliq was supposed to be out a few weeks. It's been two weeks. He was back on the court doing shooting this week, but not 5 on 5. Seems like his recovery is going about as expected, unless somebody knows something.
It doesn't sound like anyone has any news. The poster who said he's out until the ACC Tourney was just (negatively) speculating.
 
The Cuse zone was very well coached and positional. As you'd expect from a primary defense.

We are long, but I did not think our zone looked particularly well positioned. We had our wings in awkward no-man's-land at times when one side was empty (this was Kon at least twice).

Our switch to zone played a role in standing them up. I thought it got them thinking a little and stunted their momentum. We got away with some missed shots by them. It worked out but I didn't love the look of it as a longer term option unless we tighten the screws. Jon basically said this in his presser too.

- Chillin
I agree it could tighten up. But it really turned the tide in this game and shouldn't be too hard to coach up. With Tyrese and Kon out front, that's 6'5 and 6'7. Then Gillis and Flagg getting out to the corners. Big Pat or Khaman manning the middle. That's a lot of space eaters to force contested 3 pointers or elbow jumpers.
 
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.
I totally agree. Wake is a very good defensive team. We helped them by going so cold in the first 2/3 of the 2nd half but they certainly guarded well.
 
That was perhaps the worst 11-12 minutes of basketball I have ever seen a Duke team play (bear in mind that I have only been a fan for 26 years). Just awful. Like, what are we doing? awful. Head-scratchingly awful.

I hope I never have to watch another 'quarter-plus' of a Duke game in which we look like that.

I was sure we were going to lose. But we didn't, which was good. This team displayed a llt of toughness. But if we have a stretch like that against a better team, or, heaven forbid, in the tournament, we will.
 
I rewatched it. A few things. The zone defense really seemed to take the air out of their team and the building. It was bizarre. It looked like they backed off on THEIR hyper-aggressive defense when we we went to zone. A psychological shift?

On offense, Mason hit a key 3, Kon drove the lane for an easy basket, and Cooper attacked the rim 3-4 times successfully. We did a good job of attacking, but it was like their defense ran out of gas at the same time we went to zone.
The tide really turned when we went zone at about 8 minutes left, down by 6. For the next 5 minutes we went on a 14-2 run and they only scored one basket. For some reason, we went back to man D and played basically even the rest of the way, but I agree that Mason’s last 3 was the mini dagger as was Tyrese’s 3 under the 2 min mark. Crazy how that defensive shift really changed everything.
 
Ok, I went back to watch the first 8 minutes of the 2H to see what went wrong. A GOOD possession is one where we get a quality shot.

P1 - Kon almost TO. Sion rushed 3-pt air ball. Good D. BAD

P2 - Khaman draws a foul. Kon misses a contested 3-pt shot. BAD

P3 - Cooper air balls a contested 10 footer. BAD

P4 - Proctor and James both miss wide open 3s. GOOD

P5 - James misses a layup. GOOD

P6 - Cooper fouled on a drive and shoots FTs. GOOD

P7 - Proctor misses a layup. GOOD

P8 - Cooper forces a bad miss from the baseline. BAD

P9 - Kon with an ugly turnover. BAD

P10 - Foster and Proctor miss open 3s. GOOD

P11 - Proctor misses open 3. GOOD

P12 - Kon gets hacked on a drive and Pat misses an easy putback. GOOD

12 possessions. 5 bad where we did not get good shots. 7 good where we did but came up empty. Not to hang it on one guy, but Proctor had an especially rough stretch with a missed layup and three missed open 3s. Kon had some shaky ballhandling. Three missed EASY shots at the rim - Proctor, James, Pat.

Not sure what you learn from that stretch. Proctor is a streaky shooter. We have to be able to survive those droughts and we did tonight.
 
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
A least a few of Cooper’s TOs were muggings disguised as turnovers.
 
I’m glad this was a physical game with an uneven whistle. Several SEC teams play this way and we will have to run through the SEC in the tourney where refs often “let them play.” I hope we get some more rock fights. We can handle the physicality and don’t get frustrated by the refs. Both great signs.
 
I haven't been this happy to have had to work through a Duke game in several years and I'm elated to have missed what was undoubtedly a dumpster fire of an in-game chat.
 
Gutsy win. This was good for our guys.
Wake Forest played excellent defense. Duke was prepared for it in the first half. Coming out after halftime WF ratched up the intensity and Duke was intimated and became tentative. It reminded me of the loss to Tennessee to close out the 2023 season, Duke was outmuscled as UT pushed them out of their rhythm, Duke didn't know how to respond. Tonight, Duke composed themselves and pushed back. This is exactly what could await them in the NCAAs, and agree this could be a good game to learn from.
 
Back
Top