Despite a mixed performance from some of its top players, Duke had no problem handling Miami Tuesday night, cruising to an easy 79-45 victory in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Holding an advantage in height, depth and experience, No. 1 Duke (2-0) knew that it would not have an issue knocking off the RedHawks (1-1). However, the Blue Devils did commit excessive fouls and made careless turnovers at times. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski noticed.
“We’re better than both these teams,” Krzyzewski said about Duke’s first two opponents. “But you can be lazy and not contest threes and all that kind of stuff and not go for loose balls. Guys are doing that. We need to go into our next game and stay with our fundamentals.”
From the opening minutes of the game, Duke demonstrated that it was slightly overaggressive and careless with ball control. Freshman Kyrie Irving committed two fouls in the first two minutes, and sophomore Mason Plumlee made two quick turnovers on the Blue Devils’ first two possessions. While Duke was able to earn a 38-17 lead at the end of the first half, the Blue Devils continued to look less than entirely dominant. Opening the second half, they came out with a suspect game from the free throw line, and they ended the night shooting 67 percent from the charity stripe.
Luckily, its defense was impenetrable.
Narrowly avoiding the record for least amount of points scored against a Krzyzewski-coached team, Miami shot just 33 percent on the day. Duke applied constant pressure and forced the RedHawks to the perimeter, and Miami was forced to take 25 shots from 3-point range, making only six of them. Additionally, Duke was able to keep the RedHawks off the offensive glass, where only five rebounds were surrendered by the Blue Devils. Duke’s dominance on the glass was so complete, in fact, that Miami head coach Charlie Coles said his team’s strategy was to not even go for offensive rebounds, saying “we just weren’t going to get a rebound.”
“I think we did pretty good,” sophomore Seth Curry said. “Throughout the whole game, even when we got big leads, we still locked down on defense and were still working hard the whole game. That’s the biggest thing—just keep getting better every game.“
Duke utilized a balanced attack on the offensive end, as seven Blue Devils had seven or more points on the night, with Curry boasting the game-high 17. In relying on multiple players to score as opposed to a few major contributors, Duke displayed the depth of its roster that will come in handy come conference play.
The Blue Devils looked especially good on the perimeter, where they shot 40 percent on the night, largely due to their proficiency in making the extra pass and choosing good shots.
“I think we did a lot better,” Curry said. “In the first game we struggled in the half court offense to get good shots. Every night we’re not going to be able to get out and run like we want to, so sometimes we have to slow it down and get good shots in the half court.”
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