CHAPEL HILL — Given North Carolina’s talent and length in the post, there was absolutely no way that Duke could have won Wednesday night’s game playing primarily in the paint.
But on an evening when both teams combined to shoot under 40 percent from the field—including an abysmal 22.5 percent in the first half by the Blue Devils—Duke only needed one strong complementary showing down low to complete the offensive performances by Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer.
Mason Plumlee filled that role to perfection, as the 6-foot-10 freshman grabbed six offensive rebounds and played a huge role in holding the Tar Heels’ potent frontcourt of Ed Davis and Deon Thompson to just 11 combined field goal attempts.
Plumlee’s biggest contributions came after senior Lance Thomas left early in the second half with a right knee injury, highlighting just how much poise and confidence he played with in the biggest game of his short Blue Devil career.
“Mason’s performance tonight is how you get better,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “We’ll see what happens with Lance, but during February, this will be the kind of team we have.”
If the last 15 minutes are any indication, this could be a very solid team. Plumlee leapt to the same level that his North Carolina counterparts did in going after the ball and keeping possessions alive. Plumlee tied for the team high with nine rebounds, and his six offensive boards easily led all players.
“I was really by myself first on the boards, so it was just one-on-one to block out,” Plumlee said. “The ball comes off the right way sometimes and you get it.”
In the last eight minutes of the game, he helped shut out Thompson and Davis from the scoreboard. In fact, during that time, the Tar Heels did not manage to score in the paint at all after putting up 26 points down low. Plumlee accomplished all this while riddled with foul trouble, as he picked up his fourth foul with just under four minutes remaining.
Plumlee, along with the rest of the Duke defense, held the Tar Heels to just nine points in the final 8:20, including four points after the Blue Devils built a double-digit lead with less than two minutes remaining.
“No matter if your shots are falling or not, if you play defense, you can win any road game,” guard Nolan Smith said.
On the other side of the ball, it would be shortsighted to dismiss Plumlee as having no offensive contributions in the second half. It was not so much the quantity of his offensive output—after all, he only took two shots in each half—but the quality of his shots. Six of his seven points came around the basket, including a momentum-changing dunk with seven minutes remaining.
At that point, neither team had jumped out to a lead greater than two points since before the first TV timeout of the second half, and the score was tied at 45. Singler drove from the top of the key and put up a running hook shot that missed badly, but Plumlee was there to clean up and grab the offensive board. Facing away from the basket, however, he would not have had time to turn around and dunk it without facing heavy pressure from a Tar Heel down low. So Plumlee simply reverse jammed it, hyping up the Duke bench and kick-starting a 9-3 run that broke the game open for the Blue Devils.
“Mason’s play on that offensive rebound-reverse dunk was huge, not just for the two points, but for his teammates to see the ball go in with such force,” Krzyzewski said. “To give us a three- or four-possession lead going down the stretch in this game was utopia.”
Wednesday’s game served as a reminder of why the younger Plumlee was recruited to come play for the Blue Devils. But it could just as easily be seen in the near future as the moment that turned a young player with flashes of potential into a dominant force down low that can counteract lanky and powerful paint-oriented teams.
And it couldn’t have come on a bigger stage and at a better time for Duke in its most anticipated game of the year.
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