SYRACUSE, N.Y.—When Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski took his last timeout with 2:20 remaining Wednesday, it seemed like the ensuing sequences could indicate how much Duke had grown during its recent trek up the ACC standings.
Despite having already allowed 46 points in the second half, the Blue Devils led a desperate Syracuse team by two and were a few more timely defensive stops—like the ones that allowed them to escape defeat several times during their seven-game winning streak—away from staying squarely in the hunt for the ACC regular-season title.
But the Orange showed Duke it had played with fire one too many times, and the Blue Devils now find themselves searching for answers defensively yet again heading into their final three games of the year.
Coming out of that timeout, the Orange swung the ball to rookie Tyus Battle on the right wing. Matched up with Duke’s leading scorer in Luke Kennard, the rookie showed no fear of the big moment, putting a nifty dribble move on the Blue Devil sophomore then connecting on one of his many step-back jumpers on the evening.
Wednesday will be remembered for guard John Gillon’s buzzer-beater and spectacular 26-point effort, but sequences like Battle’s timely bucket showed how much progress Duke still has to make to become a true contender. After allowing a season-high 94 points to Wake Forest Saturday, the Blue Devils’ Jekyll-and-Hyde defense appeared for a second straight game, and any more relapses could cost Duke dearly with only more meaningful games ahead.
“We have to be tougher,” graduate student captain Amile Jefferson said. “We gave up too many possessions and we gave up too many points in the second half. We were flat, so when you let a good team stay in [the game], that will happen.”
The most frustrating aspect of the Blue Devil defense for fans has to be its inconsistency. As usual, Duke is in the top 10 of basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric, but leaky efforts on the other end of the court against Pittsburgh, Clemson and the Demon Deacons made recent home wins much more stressful than they needed to be.
Injuries certainly account for some of the Blue Devils’ difficulties—all of Duke’s rotation players other than Matt Jones and Luke Kennard have missed significant practice time and repetitions. But the variation within games late in the season after the Blue Devils have seemingly locked in on that end of the court is the most striking aspect of Duke’s defensive woes.
Wednesday was a perfect example.
The Blue Devils took Syracuse out of its transition game in the first half by crashing the offensive glass and hustling back on defense, holding the Orange without a bucket for more than seven minutes during one stretch and grabbing an eight-point halftime lead. That lead should have been even larger, as Duke created several transition opportunities off its defense that went awry because of poor execution on the other end.
One of the more talented offensive teams in the ACC had just 25 points, and it seemed like the Blue Devils were on track to burst Syracuse’s NCAA tournament bubble.
But once again, Duke looked lackadaisical on defense as its opponent came out of the locker room throwing punches, often jogging back and failing to corral Gillon, whose virtuoso effort saw plenty of finishes around the rim before his banked triple to win the game.
The Orange made nine of their first 11 shots after halftime and religiously got to the free throw line. With Kennard, junior Grayson Allen and freshman Frank Jackson all playing with four fouls, the Blue Devils backed off even more to avoid fouling out late in the contest.
“We just need to play better defense,” Allen said. “We scored 70-some points. It was really just our defense and being able to stop them on ball screens up top in the second half. And we didn’t have an answer—Battle got hot.”
All of a sudden, whatever Syracuse wanted offensively became a reality, with inconsistent forwards Tyler Lydon and Tyler Roberson even getting involved. After a Jayson Tatum missed 3-pointer with about six minutes left, Roberson somehow beat Duke’s entire defense down the court, resulting in an uncontested layup even though the Blue Devil guards had ample opportunity to get back.
A few minutes later, after one of Battle’s rare misses, Lydon had such good offensive rebounding position that his tip-in barely required him to make contact with the basketball.
Although Jones once again proved his worth as the team’s best defender by holding Syracuse’s leading scorer Andrew White III to one made field goal, the Blue Devils needed more collectively to stave off another opponent’s comeback.
“We couldn’t get anything for Andrew, but that opened up the other guys because there’s no help there because [Jones is] locked out on Andrew,” Orange head coach Jim Boeheim said. “That’s how we get the ball down low.”
Clearly Krzyzewski’s team is capable of defending. The Blue Devils slowed down then-No. 12 North Carolina when they needed to a few weeks ago and did the same at then-No. 20 Notre Dame Jan. 29. Like those opponents, Syracuse is a potent offensive team at home, with weapons that can score inside and out.
But as was the case for Duke’s past few teams, this one will likely need to find a higher level of consistent defensive intensity to reach its goals. The Blue Devils were able to find that new gear on defense when they won the national title in 2015—but their inability to do so led to quiet NCAA tournament efforts in 2014 and a year ago.
We knew Duke would likely not be able to keep knocking down timely jumpers to keep its winning streak alive.
Now that it has ended, we will get to see whether the Blue Devils can learn to put quality opponents away on the defensive end when they have the chance.
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