For 30 minutes Tuesday, Duke barely resembled the No. 2 team in the country. But thanks to Gerald Henderson, the Blue Devils can still lay claim to that position.
Henderson kept the Blue Devils (16-1, 4-0 in the ACC) in the game when they needed it, and a crushing 27-7 run to end the game gave Duke a closer-than-it-looks 73-56 victory against N.C. State in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Henderson led Duke in every major statistical category, with 21 points, seven rebounds, five steals and four assists.
"It was a one-possession game, and then all of a sudden, we got two steals and turned them into buckets," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "By the score, you would think we walked through this.... They didn't score much in the last eight minutes, and we did, and we won."
N.C. State (10-6, 1-3) led by four at halftime, and came out of the locker room playing the same brand of organized, physical basketball it had used to build that lead.
The Wolfpack started the second half brightly and nursed a tight lead for the first 10 minutes, but that advantage could have been much larger if not for Henderson's exhibition to open the period.
The forward's array of dunks, driving layups and NBA-caliber mid-range jumpers allowed Duke to stay within striking distance of its opponent. It was the third time in four games that Henderson has scored more than 20 points, and the 10th straight contest in which he has tallied in double digits.
"[Gerald has] played well all year, but since the middle of December, right after exams, he's playing at an extremely high level," Krzyzewski said.
In the last 10 minutes, Henderson continued his hot shooting and aggressive defense, but Duke's game-changing run was keyed by Singler and Nolan Smith, neither of whom had contributed much to that point. With the Blue Devils trailing 49-46, Smith drained consecutive 3-pointers to give his team a slim lead.
Singler followed with six straight points, Smith hit a foul-line jumper and Henderson capped a quick 16-6 spurt with an open-court, two-handed dunk.
Duke's lead ballooned from there with smart shot selection without turning the bal over. The Blue Devils shot an astounding 76.9 percent in the second half, and recorded only eight turnovers all game.
"Everybody knows, if you've been around this game, that this is a game of runs," N.C. State head coach Sidney Lowe said. "We knew they were going to make a strong push and make a run at us in the second half... but Duke made the last run, and that was the difference."
Singler picked up his fourth foul at the eight-minute mark of the second half-just as Duke's deciding run was beginning-but Krzyzewski elected to leave his leading scorer in the game. The choice turned out to be a good one, as Singler caught fire and the Wolfpack's frontcourt players essentially stopped attacking the rim.
Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley, N.C. State's top scorers and best players, had identical stat lines of 15 points and five rebounds, but neither scored in the last 12 minutes of the contest.
The Blue Devils, though, struggled to contain the pair early on. Duke jumped out to a quick 8-1 lead to start the game, but cold shooting let the Wolfpack back in. The Blue Devils shot just 29 percent in the half, while Costner and McCauley combined for 15 points and six rebounds in the stanza.
"In the first half, the game wasn't pretty," Singler said. "They were turning the ball over, we were turning the ball over. It was tough. It was a tough game to kind of get going in-it was very sloppy."
Fortunately for Duke, its play was anything but messy in the last 10 minutes.
And in a mid-week game in front of a subdued crowd against a Triangle rival, those 10 minutes were just enough.
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