After Wake Forest had closed Duke's lead to six points with six minutes remaining in the first half, Greg Paulus hit a floating three-pointer, his third of the game. On the ensuing Demon Deacon possession, DeMarcus Nelson stole the ball from guard Ishmael Smith and took it the length of the floor for an uncontested dunk, putting the Blue Devils up by 11.
Wake Forest (9-8, 1-4 in the ACC) did not get within 10 points of No. 14 Duke (15-3, 2-2) from that point on and lost at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the 10th consecutive time, 62-40.
Although Duke did not shoot the blistering 68.3 percent from the floor that it did against Miami last Sunday, the Blue Devils shut down Wake Forest defensively to pick up their first ACC home victory. The 40 points scored by the Demon Deacons, who entered the game averaging 76.4 points per game, was the lowest by an ACC opponent since Maryland beat Duke 40-36 Jan. 9, 1982.
"Our defense won the game," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Points were hard to come by for both teams tonight. So, Greg's performance, going 5-for-10 for threes, and those threes in the first half and those few defensive plays that turned into offense really gave us that working margin."
With Duke struggling to score throughout the game, the offense received a spark in the first half from the three-point shooting of Paulus, who hit four treys and scored 14 before halftime. Accounting for a large portion of Duke's 35 first-half points, Paulus led the Blue Devils into halftime with a 14-point lead.
Paulus, however, could not repeat that performance in the second half, only netting a three-pointer in the closing minute of the game. Duke was in jeopardy of having its lowest point total in a half this season of 20 until the team closed with 10 points in the final three and a half minutes. The Demon Deacons, though, outscored the Blue Devils, 5-4, during the first eight minutes following the break.
Even with the offense in a slump during the early part of the half, the defense stayed on its assignments, Krzyzewski said.
With the offense searching to find as potent a scoring option in the second half as Paulus was in the first half, the defense held steady, limiting the sloppy Demon Deacon offense to 19 points after halftime.
"We were trying to take away their threes," Paulus said. "We saw that they had a lot of really good three-point shooters, and we just wanted to take that away and put a lot of pressure on them, whether it was late pressure or early pressure."
Like they did in their last game against Miami, the Duke guards pressured the ball up top and forced the Demon Deacon backcourt to look inside, where forward Josh McRoberts was frustrating Demon Deacon Kyle Visser down low. Visser came into the game with the fourth-best scoring average in the ACC, 18.3, but he only managed 12 points against the big fellow.
"In the second half, Josh really protected our basket well," Krzyzewski said. "His blocks and defensive rebounds were terrific."
Unlike his performance against the Hurricanes in which he tallied 25 points, Jon Scheyer misfired most of the night against the Demon Deacons and finished with nine points on 3-for-11 shooting. Despite the poorer performance, Krzyzewski yelled at Scheyer to "shoot the ball" with 6:24 remaining in the second half after the freshman had passed up a look late in the shot clock.
The only player beside Paulus to finish in double-digits was McRoberts, who ended the night with 11 points on 4-for-10 shooting from the field. But even without many offensive sparks, the defense was the difference in the game.
"If we are not shooting the ball well offensively, we still have to have high intensity and great energy on the defensive end to keep us close," Paulus said.
NOTES:
Duke has a quick turnaround before it takes on N.C. State in Raleigh Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on ABC.... The Wolfpack (11-6, 1-3) will have had a week of rest since their 88-74 win over Wake Forest Jan. 13.... Duke defeated N.C. State, 81-68, in the two teams' only meeting last season.... "We've got a quick turnaround State's been waiting for us for a week this is a tough stretch for us," Krzyzewski said.
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