For the first eight minutes Sunday, No. 8 Duke (15-2, 3-0 in the ACC) looked like the same team that lost its first two road games of the season. Andre Dawkins and a resurgent Duke frontcourt made sure this story had a different ending.
Dawkins scored 24 points on 7-of-12 shooting to put away a Tiger team that would not give in during the final minutes. After Clemson (9-8, 1-2) closed a 13-point Duke lead to four with 1:31 to play, Dawkins hit an open three late in the shot clock to put Duke back up seven.
“Obviously Andre had a spectacular game, and his three when we had the four point lead was a huge shot,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “But I thought our guys did a good job finally in attacking the 1-3-1 and looking for that shot, and Andre knocked it right down.”
Later nursing a five-point lead, it was Dawkins’ defense that forced an airballed 3-pointer from Andre Young that proved to be the dagger in a 73-66 victory.
“Coming into games, I’m worrying about the defensive end rather than hitting shots,” Dawkins said. “I think I’m getting better at it.”
The opening minutes, however, looked like a replay of previous away defeats against Ohio State and Temple. Clemson dominated the glass on both sides of the court early, and the lackadaisical Blue Devil effort prompted Krzyzewski to take out his entire starting lineup just over two minutes into the game.
While the backups energized Duke defensively, the offense stagnated, as a Miles Plumlee layup was the Blue Devils’ only basket in nearly four minutes. As a result, Duke found themselves down eight points at the second media timeout.
“We needed a wakeup call, we needed a jolt,” Dawkins said. “We came out a little slow out of the gates so that’s what Coach did, and we responded well. For the lat 30 minutes we worked harder out there than they did and it showed on the scoreboard.”
The starters’ return prompted arguably Duke’s best stretch of the game, as Ryan Kelly scored five of Duke’s next seven points to spur a 17-5 run. The Blue Devils maintained that lead and took a four-point cushion into the locker room.
But while Dawkins scored nearly a third of Duke’s points, it was the Blue Devil frontcourt that gave him the scoring opportunities. After Miles Plumlee was charged with a technical foul for elbowing Tanner Smith in the face with 5:58 remaining, Clemson cut the Duke lead to eight at the free throw line.
Plumlee quickly atoned for his error at the other end of the court, though, keeping the subsequent possession alive twice on the offensive glass. The third time was the charm for the Blue Devils, as another offensive rebound by Seth Curry led to a wide-open 3-pointer for Dawkins, who shot 5-for-9 from beyond the arc in the game, that put Duke up 11.
“Miles Plumlee was a force for us,” Krzyzewski said.
Outrebounded 22-18 in the first half, the Blue Devils regained the advantage on the glass in the game’s final period and allowed only 12 points in the paint. Mason Plumlee finished with 12 points, while Miles Plumlee pulled down 14 rebounds.
“It was just five guys with the mentality that they needed to rebound,” Kelly said. “If all five guys go to the boards, we have a good chance to get rebounds and we did that.”
But the night belonged to Dawkins, who perhaps has put together his best two game stretch of the year following a 10-point effort against Virginia.
The junior’s next challenge will be to maintain that performance through the rest of the ACC season.
“The last two games Andre has been terrific,” Krzyzeski said. “He’s capable of doing that. It’s tough to do that all the time, but we needed it tonight.”
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