With 2:27 left on the game clock, Florida State had just scored five consecutive points, and the Blue Devils were staring at a 76-74 deficit.
So Duke did what it does when it needs to score.
The Blue Devils gave the ball to Gerald Henderson, and he helped them clinch a bye in the ACC Tournament.
"When we're at the end of games, a lot is on the line," Henderson said. "We're making plays and locking in."
He set up at the top of the key, and Elliot Williams fed him the ball. Henderson locked and loaded, the ball swished through the hoop and Duke never looked back.
Henderson ended the game with 21 points, and nine of those came in the final two minutes. He also posted 10 rebounds for his first career double-double and led the team with five assists.
"G is a special player," Williams said. "That's G. When the game's on the line or something's wrong, he's going to come up with the big plays. That's why we've got him on the team.
"You can see it in his eyes. When he's about to go, he's got this fire, man. He's intense every play, and he's ready to go."
After his trey to put the Blue Devils ahead, Henderson kept on rolling. For the rest of the game, he was the Duke offense. On the next possession, he fired again as he drove down the lane. Derwin Kitchen fouled him, and Henderson went to the line. Two swishes, two more points and the Blue Devils were up 79-76 with 57 seconds remaining.
A desperate Florida State squad wan't done yet, but the junior forward ended its hopes as he grabbed the ball after Brian Zoubek tipped it back off a Toney Douglas missed three and drove the entire length of the court. He was fouled again, this time by Solomon Alabi, but the shot was still true. The crowd roared, and Henderson responded with a fist-clenched scream-and made the free throw, to boot.
When the final buzzer sounded, a late 7-2 run had given Duke its 11th conference win. Henderson had six of those points.
"He made so many great plays," senior Greg Paulus said. "He was G tonight, and that's what we needed in order to win."
Those three possessions capture what Henderson has been to his team all year. At the end of the game, the Blue Devils needed to turn to their star.
And he shined brightest when they needed him to.
"We thought [Jordan] DeMercy on [Henderson] was a good matchup for us," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We do a lot with matchups, and then go to that guy-although it seems like with G, we go to him no matter what the matchup is."
While he came up big at the end of the game, it took him until the second half to get in his groove. Henderson only had seven points at the intermission, was 2-for-7 from the field and 0-of-2 from downtown. Not surprisingly, Duke was down six.
Henderson, though, was not thrown off by his initial struggles.
"My coach, my coaching staff and my teammates have a lot of faith in me," he said. "Even in a game where I wasn't playing all that great, they still went to me down the stretch. When you know that, you feel obligated to make something happen. Regardless of what happened before, I had confidence in myself that I could make a play."
His confidence paid off down the stretch, sending the seniors off in proper fashion for the first time since 2005.
From here on out, the sky seems to be the limit for Duke's brightest star, perhaps enabling him to send the team off in even grander fashion.
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