When Duke most needed points on Saturday, trailing Virginia by four and still looking very out-of-sync, it wasn’t Kyle Singler that stepped up. Nor was it Nolan Smith, even though he and Singler did combine for 42 points in the contest.
When the Blue Devils were down and needed a spark to get back up, the contributions came from Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins. A foul with 12:45 left in the second half on a 3-point attempt put Curry at the line for three shots, and he made all three. On the next series, Dawkins drained a layup and was fouled, then forced a turnover that led to a Smith slam which turned a four-point deficit into a three-point lead and awoke a dormant Cameron crowd. It was critical for a team still searching for its identity in the wake of Kyrie Irving’s injury that players like Dawkins and Curry demonstrated an ability to put the team on their shoulders. But as valuable as their contributions were, there’s still one glaring area where Duke finds itself wanting.
The contest against Virginia marked two straight games where the Blue Devils have stared down the barrel of defeat against opponents playing without significant post players. Duke took on Florida State without 6-foot-11 junior Xavier Gibson, who ranked as the seventh-best prospect according to Draft Express. Gibson represents exactly the kind of athletic big that could have given the Blue Devils fits inside. Duke then faced the Cavaliers without their leading scorer and rebounder, 6-foot-8, 242-pound senior Mike Scott. Scott averages a double-double, and his 15.9 points and 10.2 rebounds per game would rank eighth and second in the ACC, respectively, if Scott had appeared in enough games to qualify.
Even with those two players watching the games in street clothes, though, the Blue Devils’ forwards still struggled on offense.
Mason Plumlee, Duke’s primary inside threat, scored just five points against Virginia. The sophomore has seen his offensive production plummet since Kyrie Irving got hurt, with his scoring average dropping from 10.5 points per game with Irving to 3.9 points without him.
In ACC play, things have gotten tougher, not just for Mason but for the entire corps of big men. The four post players—the two Plumlees, Josh Hairston and Ryan Kelly—combined for 22.1 points per game in non-ACC games, and have averaged just 10.3 in four conference tilts. It would seem that playing Virginia without its star post player would have been a chance to improve upon that, but Hairston and Miles Plumlee went scoreless while Mason Plumlee and Kelly combined for only 13 points.
“Offensively the game’s going to come to us,” Kelly said. “Finishing around the basket—we’re continuing to work on that and playing through contact.”
There’s no doubt that Mason Plumlee is a talented rebounder, particularly on the defensive glass, where he ranks first in the conference with 8.3 boards per game, but it’s easy to wonder how a player that pulled down 10 offensive rebounds in the last two games ended up with just three field goals. Part of the problem has been his inability to finish around the rim. He shot just 2-for-5 against the Cavaliers to bring him to 4-for-15 from the floor in ACC play and 15-for-35 post-Irving. Those are low percentages for a player who takes many of his shots near or around the rim.
Nonetheless, head coach Mike Krzyzewski praised Plumlee after the game, saying repeatedly that he played well and that the coaching staff didn’t want to remove the 6-foot-11 sophomore from the contest.
“I know he missed shots inside,” Krzyzewski said, “but he had 16 rebounds, and in the last ten minutes he orchestrated our defense…. Mason had a heck of a game. [If] he hits those shots, then it would be ‘whoa,’ but it’s ‘whoa’ even if he didn’t hit the shots.”
The play of Dawkins and Curry on Saturday gives Duke reason to hope that the guards can absorb some extra scoring pressure. But once the Blue Devils start to face other teams at full strength in the post—beginning tomorrow with Tracy Smith at N.C. State and continuing later with road rematches against Miami’s Reggie Johnson and Maryland’s Jordan Williams—the Blue Devils could really use Krzyzewski’s first kind of ‘whoa.’
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