The anatomy of a dunk

With 9:25 remaining in Sunday’s game, graduate student Marshall Plumlee blocked an attempted runner by Utah State forward Lew Evans. Plumlee collected the ball over his head and fired an outlet pass toward halfcourt.

Grayson Allen caught it mid-stride right as he crossed the center line with 9:23 on the clock. Three Aggies raced after him, trying to prevent the inevitable. Trace Cureton got closest, trying to undercut the Duke sophomore as he readied for take-off, but ultimately—and perhaps wisely—got out of the way.

Allen needed just two dribbles to cover the 47 feet to the rim, then exploded to slam the ball home with his right hand, giving Duke a 71-40 lead with 9:21 left and adding to a growing list of crowd-exciting one-handed jams.

“When I’m on the break, my mentality is just attack until someone stops me,” Allen said. “If I’m not stopped, I’m going to dunk it.”

The sophomore’s reputation as a high-powered dunker predates this season. Allen jumped over former teammate Jahlil Okafor to win the slam dunk contest at the McDonald’s High School All-American game, and he put the exclamation point on Duke’s Final Four victory against Michigan State with an emphatic stuff along the baseline after corralling his own miss.

But now that he has emerged from the bench and established himself as Duke’s go-to scorer, Allen is putting his athleticism on display with regularity. He victimized Siena with a pair of dunks in Duke’s season opener and went coast-to-coast against Bryant for another.

In all three cases—and again Sunday against the Aggies—Allen found open space ahead of him, picking up the necessary steam to soar past his opponents. With a style predicated on relentlessly driving and looking for contact, Allen fights for every inch on his path to the basket—when he encounters less resistance, the dunks come.

So far this season, the only team seemingly capable of stopping Allen has been Kentucky. The Wildcats’ length met the Jacksonville, Fla., native as he drove through the paint Nov. 17 in Chicago, turning his shot away all evening and not allowing him any extra room to operate.

Allen said he tries to draw defenders to him on the fast break and will kick the ball out for a transition three if his path to the basket is blocked. So far, opponents have struggled to do that.

“Plan A is dunk,” Allen said. “Plan B is make a move.”