WINSTON-SALEMDWhile Sunday's Duke-Wake Forest game had an important effect on Atlantic Coast Conference standings, many people were eager to watch the battle within the battle as Wake Forest's Tim Duncan faced off with Duke's Greg Newton.
It was not exactly the Thrilla in Manila, but the media had heavily promoted the Duncan-Newton matchup in the days leading up to the game. Duncan, an All-American candidate and a sure lottery pick if he leaves Wake Forest early, was described by Newton as "lazy" and "soft" after the two teams met in Cameron on Jan. 10.
Although everyone else wanted to see what Duncan would do against Newton, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski obviously did not, as he started the game with freshman Taymon Domzalski on Duncan. Early in the game, Duke fans everywhere sucked in their collective breath when Duncan received the ball in the post. Domzlaski, however, had muscled Duncan away from the basket and Duncan's turnaround jumper clanked short off the rim. Instead of being intimidated, Domzalski challenged one of college's great centers and came away on the winning side for at least one short moment.
"I think it's more of a challenge than an intimidation," Domzalski said. "That's really why I wanted to play here because day-in and day-out you can have superstars and great players who go on to the NBA. That's the way you get better, by playing against better people."
Domzalski continued his strong defensive effort throughout the half and the game. Duncan was held to just six points in the first half while being defended primarily by Domzalski and Stan Brunson. Duncan worked himself into better position in the second half, but was still ineffective from the floor as Domzalski's constant pushing threw off his jump shot and relegated him to just 6-of-15 shooting from the field. Duncan finished with 20 points due to his ability to reach the foul line, but Domzalski's physical defense made Duncan look, for lack of a better word, soft.
"I thought Taymon did really well," Krzyzewski said. "He made some excellent defensive stands; I thought he played [Duncan] well. He was fighting for position, he scored for us, he got a big offensive rebound bucket late in the game."
Duncan wasn't able to reciprocate the treatment Domzalski gave him as he was assigned to cover Newton on the defensive half of the court. Domzalski took advantage of this, hitting two quick shots out of the gate and ending up 4-of-7 for eight points in the game. It was not an outstanding scoring performance, but Domzalski showed off some new offensive moves and displayed his remarkable power with two rim-rattling dunks late in the game.
"I guess that kind of stems from practice," Domzalski said. "Practicing with the guys and them telling you to take it up strong and play your game and stuff like that helps a lot."
In the battle of the boards, Domzalski also showed he could hold his own. He totaled only four rebounds in the game, but three of them were offensive and provided Duke with an opportunity to earn some rare second-chance points. Duncan pulled down 10 boards for the game, including four offensive. Considering that Duke missed 44 shots during the game, it's impressive that Duke limited Duncan to six rebounds on that side of the court versus Duke's 15 offensive rebounds.
Domzalski's main problem is his current inability to get good position on the defensive boards. By spending so much time pushing Duncan out or fronting him to deny the pass, Domzalski often gave up prime rebounding position when another Wake Forest player took a shot.
Although Domzalski is only a freshman, he is also beginning to master the art of the post-game assist along with scoring and rebounding.
"[Duncan] is a great player," Domzalski said. "I had a lot of help from my teammates too. Newton was always in the middle to help out, and whenever he put the ball on the floor, somebody would double down on him. I thought it was more of a team defense on Duncan than just me trying to guard him."
Domzalski's game took on yet another dimension Sunday as he found himself in an unfamiliar position at the end of the gameDon the floor. With Carmen Wallace injured, Domzalski was needed for a full-game effort and he gave it, playing 31 minutes while picking up only four fouls. Before the Wake Forest contest, Domzalski was averaging only 17.9 minutes per game, but still led the Blue Devils with 74 personal fouls on the year, or a foul approximately every five-and-a-half minutes.
"I think the reason I was getting fouls early on in the year was because I've been playing physical," Domzalski said, while teammate Ricky Price added, "Taymon is going to have to step in and play big minutes without fouling."
Domzalski's contributions will be necessary in all of these areas for the rest of the year. In the Wake game, Jeff Capel, Chris Collins, Steve Wojciechowski and Price were a combined 13-of-47 from the field, putting a great deal of pressure on Duke's inside game for offense. The threat of Domzalski helped open things up for Newton, who scored 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting.
While Domzalski was able to slow Duncan down, Duncan still got the better of him. Twenty points and 10 rebounds is yet another double-double for Duncan, and his team accomplished the ultimate goal of winning the game. But at some point in the next two or three years a team is going to be on the receiving end of those numbers from Domzalski, and when it wonders where he came from, that team will look back at this game as his coming-out party. Don't believe me? Let's take the word of an expert.
"He's got a very good [future in the ACC]," Duncan said. "He's a very good player and he's young. Once his [playing] time stays up there, he's going to have a great future."
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