Duke won and perhaps gave a blueprint on how to be beaten
Zion Williamson scores 22 points and throws down some highlight-reel dunks as Duke survives a solid effort by Georgia Tech. (1:42)
DURHAM, N.C. — Funny that, in a game that might’ve been celebrated for Duke returning to full strength with Tre Jones back in the lineup, it may have been more noteworthy for exposing the Blue Devils’ weakness.
OK, let’s not go overboard here. Yes, Georgia Tech led at the half, held Duke to its season low in scoring and flustered the Blue Devils’ transition game. All of that is true and warrants discussion, but let’s start here: Duke won by 13, and the game was essentially over with more than five minutes to play. Such is life for a team like Georgia Tech, which was on the wrong end of a pretty wide talent gap.
But there were red flags, and it forced some awkward personnel decisions Saturday in a game Duke wasn’t expecting to be pushed.
Start with the perimeter shooting. Duke simply isn’t good. Despite the supposed versatility of RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish to play off the basket, neither has shot consistently well from beyond the arc. The pair was just 1 of 13 against Georgia Tech, continuing an ugly trend. For the season, Duke is shooting just a tick better than 30 percent from 3, threatening to be the worst of the Mike Krzyzewski era (the current dubious record is 34.9 percent in 2008-09).
It’s a liability that rarely translates into a Final Four appearance, even for otherwise good teams — the worst 3-point shooting Final Four team of the past 10 years was the 2011-12 Louisville squad, which shot 31.8 percent from 3 (although their postseason appearances this season were later vacated).
Still, between Reddish, Barrett and the Blue Devils’ few solid bench options, there are shooters on the roster. That’s translated into an even more frustrating number: Just five teams nationally have shot more 3s than Duke, while still connecting on a lower percentage of them.
The zone seems to be particularly toxic to Duke’s perimeter game, and Georgia Tech executed it perfectly Saturday. Per ESPN’s Stats & Information, Duke has now played five games against teams that heavily utilized a zone defense. It’s shooting just 17 percent from 3 in those games.
Barrett transitioned nicely in the second half away from the perimeter game, where the shots simply weren’t falling, to becoming more of an inside threat. To do that, however, Krzyzewski had to tinker with the lineup — moving Zion Williamson to the 5 and Barrett to the 4 (although Krzyzewski refused to used that nomenclature) in order to force Georgia Tech out of its comfort zone.
“That’s the reason we went with the small lineup,” Williamson said. “It was taking our two playmakers and putting them in the middle, and the defense had to pick their poison. We moved it around, and now Cam or Tre could shoot.”
And to be sure, Reddish and Jones will have better shooting days (4 of 18 combined), but the struggles — and the audacious move to send a displeased Williamson into “a very different” role — underscored how reliant Duke is on its dynamic duo to score.
Jones’ return figured to at least be a boon for the transition game. His play on defense helped make Duke into one of the best teams in the country on the break, and his absence was felt the past two games against Virginia Cavaliers and Pittsburgh Panthers. But even with Jones back on the court, things didn’t get much better. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the Blue Devils had just 13 transition points Saturday, tied for its second-lowest total of the season. Its three worst games in transition have been the past three, when Duke has averaged just 11.3 points — less than half its season average previously.
“We’re a transition team,” Krzyzewski said. “We had it in the first half, and we didn’t score. You’ve got to score the bucket or get a foul or both. You can’t come up empty in transition at the basket because of how hard you work to get there.”
Krzyzewski said he’d be showing the film of those missed chances to the team, a reminder that all the work before the shot only matters if the shot falls.
“We didn’t finish,” he said.
But Krzyzewski also downplayed any real concerns. Struggles from 3, transition buckets not falling, an offense that looked out of sync at times — these are just the realities of a long season, he said.
Duke freshman guard Tre Jones, who missed two games after suffering an AC joint separation in his right shoulder, started Saturday’s win against Georgia Tech.
RJ Barrett had 24 points and 11 rebounds, and No. 2 Duke pulled away to beat Georgia Tech 66-53 on Saturday in point guard Tre Jones’ return to the lineup.
Maybe. It’s easy to fall in love with all the highlights, to see Williamson and Barrett put up 46 between them — their 11th game this year with 20 apiece — and wonder how anyone beats Duke when the shots are falling.
But throughout an awkward 60 minutes Saturday against a team that should’ve been blatantly overmatched, it was also easy to see how vulnerable Duke is when the shots don’t fall, how reliant the Blue Devils might be on Barrett’s adjustments and Williamson’s physicality.
Was Saturday a blueprint for how to beat Duke? Was it a one-game blip as they adjust to life with their star point guard back running the show? A little of both?
No one inside the locker room seems worried, so perhaps that’s the answer. Reddish went 1 for 11, and Williamson said he was still telling his teammate to shoot the step-back 3. It’s what they do, good or bad. Confidence, Williamson said, won’t be the problem.