WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.—It wasn't a pretty first half for Matt Jones.
The sophomore guard dove on the floor for a loose ball. It ended up in the hands of the Demon Deacons for an uncontested transition bucket.
He tried to finish a lay-up of his own in transition. It was swatted away.
He launched a 3-pointer from the corner, in front of the Wake Forest bench. It hit nothing but—well, nothing.
But come crunch time, Jones flushed all of that from his memory. The DeSoto, Texas, native scored five points—his only five of the night—in the final four minutes to stem the tide of Wake Forest's late-game surge. His final shot, a wing 3-pointer that splashed home to give Duke a 64-59 lead with 2:26 remaining, may have been the biggest one of his Blue Devil career.
"We were due for something. We couldn't get in a rhythm all game offensively," Jones said. "Credit to them, they played really well, but I feel like that three really put us over the edge where we could breathe again."
Jones struggled mightily from behind the arc as a freshman, and looked to have newfound confidence in his stroke early in the year. But after a frigid month of December in which he went 0-for-7 from downtown, the reliability of his perimeter scoring had again been called into question. Wednesday's big shot, coupled with a 2-for-4 performance in the ACC opener against Boston College, may help to answer it.
"It was definitely a spark," center Jahlil Okafor said. "It was the biggest shot of the game."
The 64-59 lead quickly became 71-61, and the Blue Devils made sure it held up, leaving Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum with a 73-65 win.
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski gave Jones credit for turning the forgettable first half into a productive 19 minutes of work by game's end.
"Tyus [Jones] made some big plays for us and the biggest bucket was Matt's three," Krzyzewski said. "We missed layups, about five in the first half. They chased us down but we weren't strong in the finish, and for Matt to turn that around within a game is really impressive."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.