CHARLOTTE - A player like Stephen Curry is not easy to stop.
Even at 6-foot-2, Curry can drive and finish in the lane and can also nail shots from downtown with precision.
And with 38 of his team's 71 points the previous Monday against Appalachian State, Curry showed he could single-handedly take over a game.
So heading into Saturday's contest, Duke knew it would have to limit the Wildcats' sophomore sharpshooter if it hoped to extend its winning streak over Davidson to 21 games. Although the Blue Devils had difficulty stopping Curry, they got help from an unexpected source-Curry himself.
Curry picked up four fouls over the course of the game, each coming on offensive charges. All four were a result of an overly aggressive mentality. Curry admitted after the game that he never looked to see if he had a defender waiting for him on his drives to the basket.
"When you're driving, there's never a free lane," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "That's part of our defense. Stephen is an aggressive player, and those are tough calls one way or another."
Curry's impact became especially noticeable when he was relegated to the bench. The Wildcats outscored the Blue Devils 66-48 when Curry was on the floor, but during the six minutes that he did not play, Duke held a stunning 31-7 advantage over Davidson.
Greg Paulus induced two of those charges, including Curry's momentum-changing second foul with 9:07 left in the first half.
Up to that point, neither team had established control of the game, as the largest lead was only three. Kyle Singler, who drew Curry's first foul at the 14:01 mark, scored on a putback off a Taylor King miss to tie the game at 17. Curry sprinted down the court and drove in hard toward the left side of the basket, but Paulus stood his ground and drew the crucial second foul.
Curry had to leave the game at the next dead ball, and when he returned three and a half minutes later, Duke had jumped out to a 34-21 lead. Although Curry came back in with over five minutes left in the half, he only took three more shots, and of those, two were contested pull-up jumpers.
"We tried to make him work," Paulus said. "Anytime you can control a guy like that who is so dangerous on the offensive end and put him on the bench, it's definitely going to limit him, his minutes and his touches, so it helped to get those charges."
In the second half, foul trouble continued to hinder Curry. He picked up his third foul just five seconds in, and his fourth came with 12:00 left. From there on out, Curry was noticeably conservative the rest of the way, failing to attack the basket and shooting 3-of-7 from the field, including one air ball.
Curry's inability to attack the basket especially hurt his team late, as he could not drive for quick scores or trips to the foul line to stop the clock. Since Davidson could not stop the clock in the last 15 seconds, the Wildcats had to scramble on defense and ended up fouling Jon Scheyer, a 92 percent free-throw shooter this year, and Gerald Henderson, who finished with a team-high 21 points. The two players made both of their free throws, and although Curry did make a quick three with 6.5 seconds left, at that point, it was too little, too late. Fittingly, Curry ended the game with another turnover on a drive to the basket with a travel.
"I don't like this feeling at all," Curry said after the game. "[With] the situation I was in, I thought I could get to the basket. They stepped in and took some charges."
And with those charges, the Blue Devils took Curry-and Davidson-out of the game.
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