EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This time around, the Blue Devils weren’t going to give Butler a chance at the buzzer.
In a highly-anticipated rematch of the 2010 national championship game, Duke rebounded from a sluggish first half and ran over an overmatched Bulldog squad as head coach Mike Krzyzewski moved into a tie with Adolph Rupp on the all-time coaching wins list with 876.
In Kyrie Irving’s homecoming, the freshman phenom wowed the East Rutherford, N.J. crowd by drilling two dagger 3-pointers and scoring 17 second-half points to help No. 1 Duke break away from Butler. Despite the best efforts of Shawn Vanzant, who scored 14 points off the bench to keep the game close, the undefeated Blue Devils (8-0) were able to hang on and best the Bulldogs (4-3) for the second time in 2010, 82-70.
“You can’t practice playing against championship-level teams,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m proud of our guys…. They won a big game.”
In front of a pro-Blue Devil crowd, Duke simply couldn’t match the energy of its fans early on, and Butler pounced. Led by star guard Shelvin Mack, the Bulldogs made easy baskets and traded the lead with Duke throughout the first half. Uncharacteristically, the Blue Devils missed a bevy of open three-point looks and turned the ball over seven times in just the first eight minutes of the game, much to the displeasure of Krzyzewski.
A coast-to-coast drive and dunk by Nolan Smith tied the game at 33 just before halftime, but it was clear that Duke might not have the focus to beat a well–prepared Bulldog team after two weeks on the road and a game against powerhouse Michigan State. On the floor the Blue Devils lacked a spark, but all it took was a spirited halftime speech from the third-winningest coach in college basketball to get things going again.
“It’s like a fighter in a big fight, you get him in the corner and say, ‘Come on champ… we need to win this round,’ and we did,” Krzyzewski said.
The Blue Devils looked like a different team in the second half, hawking the ball defensively and forcing Butler to shoot just 42 percent in the period. Led by the quartet of Irving, Smith, Andre Dawkins and Seth Curry, Duke stagnated the Bulldogs’ offense, and went on a 12-0 run enabled by its full-court pressure.
“My energy picked up definitely. We had a great halftime talk. Coach gave us that halftime speech that we needed,” Irving said.
Dawkins, who has been an invaluable source of energy and scoring off the bench in recent weeks, put in what might have been his best performance in a Duke uniform on Saturday. Playing a career-high 32 minutes, Dawkins’s contributions were much larger than his box score line would indicate, and the majority of the sophomore’s 10 points came in clutch situations.
“Andre has been great for us throughout the whole season,” Kyle Singler said. “That’s what he’s been doing. As long as he’s coming in with a lot of energy and playing defense… that’s a big boost to our team.”
More importantly, Dawkins’s lockdown defense and effort on the defensive glass—he grabbed eight rebounds on the day—kept the Bulldog guards frustrated throughout the game. On an afternoon when Duke’s starting five struggled to find any sort of rhythm offensively, Dawkins’s presence on the floor gave the Blue Devils a much-needed jolt.
Vanzant, filling in for an injured Mack who went down in the second half with cramps, scored 10 consecutive points for Butler to close the game to 60-57, but Irving was not to be denied in his home state. His two 3-pointers on consecutive possessions quickly ballooned the Duke lead to nine with just 6:21 remaining. According to Krzyzewski, Irving’s unparalleled ability to read and react to the defense allowed him space to bury the shots.
“We were only up by three and we called a high ball screen… [the defenders] went under the screen, and [Kyrie’s] a really good player,” he said. “He made that read, that’s his read… Instead of three we went up nine, and that kind of broke it open.”
Up against a large deficit and a defense clicking on all cylinders, the Bulldogs simply didn’t have the firepower to mount a comeback. Dawkins’s three with 3:21 remaining sealed the deal, and the Blue Devils survived the roughest patch of their schedule thus far.
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