CLEMSON, S.C. - It had already been an exhausting week for the Blue Devils.
Duke's seniors had captured their first win at Wake Forest's Lawrence Joel Coliseum Sunday, and then the nation's top-ranked team snapped its three-game losing streak to Maryland Wednesday.
Given the circumstances, the Blue Devils (16-0, 4-0 in the ACC) knew their Saturday afternoon trip to Clemson (13-4, 2-2) to face a Tiger squad that had just knocked off the Demon Deacons would be difficult, despite winning their last 18 contests against Clemson.
The game was far from easy, but Duke's veteran leadership guided the Blue Devils past a pesky and determined Tiger squad, 87-77, at Littlejohn Coliseum.
"That's the hardest any team has played against us this year, and we've had teams play hard against us," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We're not surprised by it. We expected it."
It was a somewhat unusual game for the Blue Devils, who attempted only nine three-pointers-10 below their season average-and also saw senior J.J. Redick miss four free throws in a game for the first time in his career.
But Duke, which scored 38 points in the paint and another 29 from the free-throw line, fought its way through foul trouble and iced the game on the line in the closing minutes. Redick led five Blue Devils in double digits with 34 points.
"I just think offensively, with the exception of a few plays, we were pretty smart today," Redick said. "Any time you can adapt during a game and still score, I think it just shows a little bit of maturity."
Although Duke extended its six-point halftime lead to 11 in the opening minutes of the second half, Vernon Hamilton nearly single-handedly kept the game close. He scored 18 of his career-high 31 points after the break.
The 6-foot Hamilton, who needed a couple of stitches on his forehead to close a gash he suffered while chest-bumping a teammate during player introductions before the game, attacked the Blue Devil defense. Rather than being intimidated by Shelden Williams, who was coming off a career-high 10 blocks against the Terps Wednesday, Hamilton took the ball at the Duke big man and repeatedly shot floaters in the lane over Williams' outstretched arms.
"Hamilton, for them, was incredible," Krzyzewski said. "He hit more leaners than I've ever seen."
Despite Hamilton's efforts, Clemson could not get closer than four in the second half, due in large part to atrocious foul shooting that Tigers head coach Oliver Purnell said might have cost his team a chance at the upset. Entering the game as the ACC's worst free-throw shooting team, Clemson connected on just six of their 21 attempts-a 28.6 percent clip.
"It's frustrating to lose to a team like this when you have an opportunity to win, an opportunity to play the No. 1 team in the country," Purnell said. "You just don't get those opportunities very often."
After Clemson pulled back within five with less than two minutes to go, Redick broke the Tigers' press by finding Sean Dockery open for an easy layup, and down the stretch the Blue Devils hit 9-of-10 from the charity stripe to crush Clemson's hopes.
The two teams went back and forth over the game's first 20 minutes, with the lead changing nine times, and neither team was able to gain a significant advantage.
Reading the passing lanes well, Dockery stole the ball four times in the opening minutes, but the Tigers' guards often got into the paint for easy baskets. Then, when each of Duke's big men picked up two fouls in the period, Krzyzewski was forced to make an unusual defensive adjustment.
"We got in all that foul trouble, and we went into a match-up zone to stop their penetration," Krzyzewski said. "That's the first time we've played that for that extended an amount of time. We might have done it on an out-of-bounds situation, but we played it for about 10 minutes. That's about 10 minutes more than we've played it in most seasons."
The Blue Devils went back to their trademark man-to-man in the second half and fought their way to what Redick called an important road win in a close game.
"They really knocked us back a little bit for a while there, and I think we needed to catch our breath, get back on our feet and scratch out a win," senior Lee Melchionni said.
NOTES:
The Blue Devils are off to their second-best start in school history. The 1992 National Championship team won its first 17 games, and Duke's only other 16-0 start came in 1986.... The Blue Devils are one of only three unbeaten teams left in Division I and are the only team in the ACC that has not lost a conference game through the first four games of the league schedule.... Freshman Josh McRoberts played only two minutes in the second half and did not score in that time. Melchionni, who started the second half in his place, said he talked to McRoberts after the game and told him to, "'Come back Monday and be ready to go.' There are going to be games that we need him and he's going to win games for us".... After blocking three shots in the game, Williams is one block shy of tying Mike Gminski, Duke's all-time leader. He is averaging 3.7 rejections per game this season.... Dockery scored 10 points, reaching double digits for the seventh time this season. The Blue Devils improved to 14-0 when the senior scores at least 10 points.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.