There's a fairly good chance that anytime Nolan Smith slams home a dunk as impressive as his 2-on-1 flush against Southern Illinois, you'll hear a Duke fan or an ESPN analyst say something along the lines of, "Well, that's something Greg Paulus can't do, and that's why Smith is starting over the senior." (For the record, there are plenty of things Paulus can do that Smith can't, but you won't hear much of that.) So let us say it once and get it out of our system for the season: Smith's coast-to-coast tomahawk slam last night was, indeed, something that Paulus can't do.
After Brian Zoubek collected a rebound off an airball (Dan Shulman's play-by-play: "I don't know if that was a shot or a pass"), the 7-foot center threw an outlet pass to Smith at midcourt. Smith streaked down the left side and Wesley Clemmons stood between Smith, the basket and Gerald Henderson on the right. Smith had a few options: He could pull up for a short jumper, loft an alley-oop to Henderson, pass to Henderson and wait for him to return to the give-and-go or, of course, do what he did, which was simply jump over Clemmons and dunk himself.
The slam early in the second half seemed to jumpstart Duke and deflate Southern Illinois, which immediately took a timeout--and whereas Paulus can cripple a team with a fallaway three, Smith can do it in a sexier way.
"Most of the way, I'm seeing [Henderson], an an oop to [Henderson] gets us really excited," Smith said. "But the kid backed off, so I just took off. first time I've done that in a long time, so it felt good."
And it must have felt equally as good for any Duke fan who isn't used to seeing that type of elevation from the point guard position, at least not since the days of Jason Williams running the show.
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