After the fifth steal, Cook put home an acrobatic layup to give No. 8 Duke the lead, spurring a 16-4 run en route to a 80-63 victory at Madison Square Garden.
Cook finished with eight steals, along with five assists and 14 points. Although not usually lauded for his defensive prowess, he also helped limit Adams, who entered play averaging 21.2 points per game, to a season-low 10 points.
The person Cook wanted to thank for his defensive performance: the one player on Duke (9-2) whose defensive skills are most often questioned.
“Shout out to Andre Dawkins,” Cook said. “He helped me out with the defensive game plan coming in here—just watching film.”
Cook said he and Dawkins specifically watched film on NBA star Paul George and how he defended LeBron James. Cook, at six feet tall, even spent possessions defending Anderson, who often handles the ball for the Bruins (9-2) and stands 6-foot-9.
UCLA’s 63 points were a season low—and the first time it scored fewer than 70 points—as it entered play averaging 89.1 points per game, third most in the nation.
“There aren’t any shutouts,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. 
Adding 10 rebounds and five assists, Parker recorded his third double-double of the season. He has scored at least 20 points in nine of the team’s 11 games.
Though Duke led by as many as 10 points in the first half, the Bruins were able to take the lead and send it into halftime 37-37 because they hit 6-of-10 3-pointers in the period. In the second half, however, they made just 2-of-12 long-range tries, finishing with just 26 points in the final 20 minutes.
Rasheed Sulaimon, whose playing time has fluctuated recently and reached a nadir when he did not play against Michigan, hit Duke’s final 3-pointer of the game. With 2:00 left in the game, Cook fed Sulaimon and the sophomore shooting guard drained the bucket, prompting his teammates to crowd around him and celebrate when Krzyzewski took a time out.
The 3-pointer put Duke up by 11 and seemingly sealed the victory. Sulaimon was the first guard off the bench in the second half, a role that had been shared by Andre Dawkins and Matt Jones recently.
“We just had the feeling that somehow he was going to make a big play to close the game,” senior captain Tyler Thornton said. “We all knew it was going to happen, so we were just waiting for it to happen, and then he hit that shot.”
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