Blue Devils knock off Miami, head to ACC Tournament Championship game
The Blue Devils hit 11 free throws late to hold off Miami in the first ACC Tournament semifinal matchup.
ACC Tournament semifinal games are meant to look like Duke’s matchup with Miami on Friday — hard fought, gritty, intense and flooded with a desire to win on both sides.
Both the Blue Devils and Hurricanes laid everything out on the court, and the result was a tremendous basketball game that went down to the wire. Duke eventually held off Miami, winning 80-76 to advance to ACC final on Saturday.
Were there moments of ugly plays? Yes, there were. Did some of the decisions leave you scratching your head? Sure, to a degree. However, overall it was a battle worthy of an ACC semifinal game.
“That was just a heckuva game,” Mike Krzyzewski said. “That was really a good basketball game. This is a game where both teams are worthy of winning. Kids are making really good plays.
“You didn’t win because somebody made a mistake, or you fumbled into something. Everything was earned tonight. So, I’m proud of my guys.”
If you watched the first six-plus minutes of the game, you probably would not have anticipated such comments to be made by game’s end.
Those opening six minutes is when the “ugly” and questionable decisions existed. At least for Duke. Ugly and questionable might be an overstatement, but the point is Duke was not on top of its game and execution was not at its peak.
Offensively, the Blue Devils struggled mightily.
Duke opened the game just 3-of-10 from the field, including four misses on the opening possession. The Blue Devils won the tip, and got its first shot with 19:38 on the clock. It was a 3-point attempt that clanged off the rim, but resulted in an offensive rebound. The Blue Devils grabbed two more offensive boards on the same possession, missing each attempt that followed.
The Blue Devils held the ball for 49 seconds, recorded three offensive rebounds, four shots and zero makes.
AJ Griffin followed up on the next possession with a 3-pointer, and Duke appeared to be settling down. Miami, though, had different plans. During that initial six minutes the Blue Devils would go on to turn the ball over four times.
Miami turned those miscues into eight points, and by the 13:56 mark had an 11-point lead over the Blue Devils. Things weren’t going well at all.
Duke’s poor offense might have been a product of their even worse defense. During that same stretch, Miami was 7-of-10 from the field, including four 3-pointers. Duke was flirting with a danger zone right out of the gates.
“We started out and they almost knocked us out,” Krzyzewski said. “The plan we had didn’t work. Or wasn’t working defensively. We weren’t aggressive in the plan we had. That’s on us — the coaching staff, on me.
“And then we changed it and got back to playing our regular stuff.”
The “regular stuff” started working pretty quickly. Duke began to find a rhythm after the under-12 media timeout with 11:53. The Blue Devils entered the stoppage of play trailing 20-12. By the 7:37 mark, the game was tied up at 22.
Duke’s 10-2 was highlighted by four quick points over the span of 32 seconds from Paolo Banchero.
“When we went down early, I just wanted to assert myself and be vocal and get everybody going,” Banchero said. “We responded great.”
His dominance at times in the first half, and particularly in those moments, were not a product of anything specific he was trying to accomplish, according to the freshman.
“Just trying to establish myself early. Just being aggressive. Really that’s all it was. I was out there playing. Just playing basketball — but doing it aggressively and with a lot of effort. That’s really all that was really to it. I didn’t really have a specific thing I was trying to do. I was just trying to go out there and be aggressive and play hard and get the lead.”
Those points would prove to be his last of the first half — thought he scored 11 on 5-of-6 shooting, while also grabbing seven rebounds.
Usually, a stretch of six minutes without Banchero scoring is a sign of bad times. Not on this night - at least to a degree. Miami did respond with a 7-0 run of its own, but it was short lived.
The level of intensity in which Banchero set was a catalyst for the rest of the team. And those final six minutes didn’t become what Banchero was not doing, but rather what Griffin was doing.
Griffin, who was still feeling an impact from Thursday’s stomach bug or food poisoning, had one of those stretches we have become accustomed to seeing — those stints of time where he absolutely takes over a game and there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.
The freshman wing made a driving layup with 5:07 on the clock, cutting Miami’s seven point lead to five. It was his first basket since the 18:41 mark when he opened the game with a 3-pointer. It wouldn’t be his last, though. Griffin hit his stride and scored 12 of Duke’s final 14 points of the first half.
Jeremy Roach scored the final basket of the half and sent Duke to the locker room tied with Miami, 36-36.
“AJ scored like 12 straight and basically put us back in the game singlehandedly,” Banchero said. “And then Jeremy went full court and got a layup at the end and that gave us a lot of momentum.”
Krzyzewski also noted the play of Griffin and Roach.
“We were able to tie the game,” he said. “AJ really gave us a 12 point spurt there, and he’s done that a number of times this season. And we were able to score right at the end of the half and it was even, although we could’ve been down even double digits if we kept going. But we did right the ship.”
The key there is Duke could’ve been trailing by double digits. That idea certainly seemed to be in the cards at times. But they weren’t this night.
That’s a lot of talk about the first half, but the bottom line, without Banchero’s play, and Griffin’s 15 first half points and explosion at the end, this article would have a very different outline.
Those final 10 minutes of the half changed the course of the night.
The second half then became a classic blow for blow battle. Although Duke trailed for just 39 seconds in the final 20 minutes, Miami — thanks to the play of Kameron McGusty, who scored 17 of his 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting in the second half — kept Duke within arms reach all half long.
No matter what Duke threw at the Hurricanes, they were able to prevent the Blue Devils from pulling away. In fact, Duke’s largest lead of the game and half was seven points, 57-50 and 59-52 with 10:31 and 9:58 remaining, respectively.
Miami cut Duke’s lead to as few as one point with 1:22 to go in the game. They simply would not allow Duke to create much distance.
“Credit to Miami, they didn’t fold at all,” Banchero said. “They had an answer every time.”
Well, close to every time.
Before we get to that point, though, let’s back track. Wendell Moore Jr., who finished the game with 17 points (13 coming in the second half), six rebounds, three blocks, two assists and one steal, made two hugely important plays in the second half.
In an illustration of Banchero’s characterization of Miami’s unwillingness to fold, there were two moments in particular in which that drive could’ve helped them overtake Duke and possibly broke their will.
Miami had the ball with 7:52 remaining in the game, trailing by just three points. To that point, the teams had been trading baskets for the previous three minutes, but the Hurricanes had just broken through and scored back-to-back baskets.
Duke’s Griffin, who had been held mostly in check in the second half, missed a shot that would have slowed Miami’s momentum. Instead, the miss gave Miami an opportunity to go on a six or seven to zero run. The Hurricanes were pushing the ball, when Isaiah Wong went up for a driving layup.
Moore had other plans. He blocked the shot from behind, with Duke gaining possession. The Blue Devils scored on a Mark Williams second chance layup and Miami’s momentum was stopped in its tracks.
At least it was briefly. Miami quickly scored six points, and regained the lead at 62-61 with 6:05 remaining. Then Moore had one of the most important sequences of the game.
The junior made a jump-shot with 5:42 on the clock to give Duke the lead back. On Miami’s ensuing possession, Wong again attempted to drive to the basket and Moore for a second time denied the attempt.
Moore pushed the ball up the floor and finished with a layup on a fast break and just like that Duke was up three with 5:28 left in the game. Miami did tie the game again on the next possession, but Moore stopped a momentum shift and prevented his team from falling apart late in the game as they have on other occasions.
“I thought two of the key plays were the blocks when they had fast breaks,” Krzyzewski said. “Our guys made magnificent plays on them. But we also turned them into a bucket, so there were two four-point turnarounds during that time.”
Duke would score just one more field goal in the game, though, which came on a Trevor Keels layup with 4:13 to go. That bucket put Duke ahead by four points. But the Blue Devils’ defense down the stretch allowed them to put the game away.
Miami was forced to stretch the game out by fouling, which Jim Larranaga had his team doing with 1:42 left.
The Blue Devils responded with poise and confidence, making 11 of 14 free throws in those final 1:42. Moore connected on all four of his attempts, while Griffin converted 3-of-4, including the final two of the game with seven seconds. Keels also netted two in a row, while Roach and Banchero each made one.
Miami did respond with seven points in the final 27 seconds, but it was not enough, as the Blue Devils knocked down their free throws.
“Plays like that shows our growth as a team,” Mark Williams said in reference to Duke’s final minutes. “Those moments where we didn’t make those plays, didn’t convert, but now later in the season we’re making those plays, making the right decisions or whatever it may be. I think it’s just a testament to our hard work and perseverance throughout the season.
“Just keep going at it. We never backed down.”
The win sends Duke into the ACC Tournament final to battle Virginia Tech, who upset North Carolina, 72-59, in the other semifinal.