I'm pretty sure I've already used "live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot" already this season. I was hoping I wouldn't have to use it again.
There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Duke had a lot to play for Saturday night in Chapel Hill and they just weren't good enough. Too many missed 3s, too many UNC rebounds, too many easy baskets by the boys in light blue. The result was an 81-67 UNC victory that gives the resurgent Tar Heels the ACC's regular-season title and sends Duke into Greensboro with some questions that need to be answered very quickly.
Duke got off to a sluggish start, going almost four minutes before getting their first field goal, and that was a put-back by Miles Plumlee, in because brother Mason picked up two fouls in less than three minutes, while Ryan Kelly missed three wide-open 3-pointers in Duke's first four possessions
Seth Curry had one of his best games in the first Duke-UNC game and he showed it wasn't a fluke. He hit a couple of 3s, tying the game at 10 and it was game on.
For awhile. Duke actually led a couple of times, with Curry and Nolan Smith sharing the load, along with a revitalized Miles Plumlee. But the Tar Heels just dominated the second quarter of the game, seemingly matching every missed Duke 3 with a UNC lay-up. A 14-2 UNC run gave them their first double-digit lead, at 34-23.
Fittingly, five different Tar Heels scored at least two points in that run. Duke's two top scorers put up 50 points, UNC's top two scorers tallied 33.
One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the problem. Kyle Singler and Ryan Kelly combined for 4-for-21 shooting, missing all 11 shots from beyond the arc. Mason Plumlee went scoreless in 18 foul-plagued moments, although he did grab nine rebounds. Neither Andre Dawkins nor Tyler Thornton scratched.
You can get by with this sort of thing if the rest of your game is at a high level. But that wasn't the case Saturday night. Duke did some things well. Foul shooting was excellent at 77 percent and Duke turned it over only nine times. But Duke was outrebounded 40-32 and their defense just wasn't very good for sizeable portions of the game.
Carolina won the game largely on two runs. The first came beginning with around the mid-point of the first half. Duke was up 21-20 and scored 18 points in the last 10 or so minutes before intermission. Not great but not bad.
But Carolina put up 31 in that period and did it with the help of only two 3-pointers. The rest was a lay-up drill. Not to put too fine a point on it but Mike Krzyzewski and Duke didn't build their program by allowing teams to score 31 points in 10 minutes.
Duke came out of the second half looking like a team with something to prove. Smith hit a lay-up, Curry knocked down another 3, Singler scored and suddenly it was 51-46 and the game seemed quite winnable. But a lay-up, two foul shots, a dunk and a Harrison Barnes 3 and the lead was back at 60-48.
The Blue Devils fought the rest of the way but just never could get anything going. When they scored, the couldn't get stops, when they got stops they couldn't score. It's called trading baskets and it's not the way to sustain a rally.
What happens next? Mike Krzyzewski and his staff are pretty good at figuring out how to fix things and I'm sure he doesn't need my suggestions. But in the continued absence of a certain freshman point guard, Duke just doesn't have the wiggle room to play the kind of defense Duke played for much of their ill-fated trip to Chapel Hill and still beat good teams.
So, it starts there. Duke may have a defensive boot-camp for a few days.
Shooting better than 35 percent would be nice. Can Duke figure out a way to get better shots for Kyle Singler, get more scorers involved, keep Mason Plumlee in the game and generate points from inside the arc?
But most of all, can Duke play Duke defense?
I suspect Duke will be hungry and focused next week. But I thought the same thing about Saturday's game. So, we shall see.
Notes.
ACC and NCAA Tournament statistics count, so the final tabulations won't come until the last whistle has sounded. But Kendall Marshall's 11 assists against Duke likely end Nolan Smith's chances of becoming the first player to lead the ACC in scoring and assists. But Smith's 30-point effort did nothing to harm his national player-of-the-year credentials.
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