Duke Beats Team Nike

Duke 103, Team Nike 63.

November 4, 2002.

Cameron Indoor Stadium.

This was less a competitive game than a chemistry professor's extended experiment. Coach K mixed and matched lineups, offenses and defenses, trying to see which combinations clicked. The Nike team had several experienced, physical players, but only fielded eight players and weren't being paid to play defense. A team filled with decent players who pretty much do nothing but go one-on-one will never beat a team with equal talent that runs a system. With that caveat in mind, let's take a quick look at that team. The best player was probably Cordell Henry, a very good guard at Marquette. Cincinnati provided two of its beefy big men, Jamaal Davis and Donald Little. Will Cunningham was a physical rebounding specialist at Temple. Terrell Baker was one of the better players at FSU under Steve Robinson, while Darren Kelly was an athletic guard from Texas. This wasn't a team of slow stiffs, though it did lack shooters and great ballhandlers. Even the coach was somewhat well-known: "Wild" Bill Frieder, who coached at both Michigan & Arizona State, among other stops.

It's interesting to watch some of the tendencies that have already formed on the team. First, it's clear that Shavlik Randolph & Shelden Williams complement each other quite well. While it's fair to say that Shelden has the brawn & Shav has the finesse, neither player is bereft of either quality. Shelden is extremely quick and possesses a nice shooting touch, while Shav has gotten much stronger and loves to post up. Also of interest is the way Chris Duhon is interacting with his teammates. While he is always looking to set up the perimeter shooters for threes, he's also making a special effort to feed Shelden & Shav down low. He and Dan Ewing have an easy camaraderie, and it's clear that he already loves dishing to JJ Redick. More interesting is what he did on defense. He's quite clearly aware of his role as one of the team's defensive stoppers, and has been much more cautious when guarding on the ball as a result. When teamed with Sean Dockery, you get two guys with incredibly quick hands who will generate many steals this year. Dock will have Duhon's back on defense in a way that Chris didn't have last year.

The game began with Cunningham hitting a short baseline jumper, surprising Randolph & Williams. Duke's other starters included Ewing, Duhon and Dahntay Jones. Duke followed with a three point barrage that resembled the kinds we've seen from recent Duke teams. Duke hit four in a row, with several from some unlikely shooters: 2 from Jones, 1 from Ewing and 1 from Nick Horvath. Chris picked up 3 quick assists, while 1 pass was initiated by Shelden, going inside-out. After Nick hit his first three, he came back and hit a long two. Nick had a presence on the court that I've seen before in practice but never in game action: calm, self-assured and aggressive. He then immediately hurt his foot, but it turned out to be nothing serious.

Horvath had entered the game as part of a platoon alongside frosh guards Redick & Dockery. JJ was patient on offense, waiting a while before taking his first shot. Dock came in and made an immediate impact at both ends of the court. First he picked a Nike player clean and scored on a runout. Then he grabbed a board and ran a perfect break, with Shelden finishing. Sean then drove and kicked it back to Shelden for a surprisingly smooth-looking 15' jumper. Team Nike finally got an open shot or two, and cut the lead to 20-8 with about twelve minutes to go in the half. Duke continued to attack, with Duhon finding Jones in transition and then zipping a pass over to Redick for his first three.

Horvath then returned to the game and was the most dominant player on the floor for about five minutes. Nick dished to JJ for his second three, doing a good job at finding a hot shooter. Nick then spotted up on the wing and fired away again, sinking a trey that would have been a brick last year. He hustled to get a tip-in basket and passed to Shelden in the low post for a turnaround jumper. When he left the court, Duke led 37-11, the game pretty much out of hand.

Duke continued to go deep into its bench, bringing on Michael Thompson and Lee Melchionni. Thompson actually wound up playing a lot of his minutes with Casey Sanders, in an effort to create size mismatches inside. Duke went cold for a few minutes when Duhon sat out, but the young forward tandem of Randolph & Williams took over. Shav tipped in a miss and then scored on an inbound when Duhon came back in. Shav then threw a ball in from the high post to Shelden in the low post for an easy score. Duhon drove and dished back to Shelden, who spotted up from 17' and swished the jumper. Duke continued the pummeling when Redick drove and passed to Horvath, who concluded his evening with another three. The Devils led 53-23. Horvath had 13 points and 4 rebounds, which was pretty much a career game for him. Shav had 6 points and 4 boards, while Shelden had 10 & 4. Duhon had 8 assists at the half! Some of Bobby Hurley's single season and game assist records may be in jeopardy this year.

Shav & Shelden picked up where they left off to begin the second half. Shelden had the ball in the low post and the reversed it to Shav, who let fly from near the top of the key for a 19 footer. Jones drove on Duke's next possession, and he flipped it back to Shelden for a smooth-looking three. Shave kept the pounding up with a tip-in. Duhon then asserted himself a bit, going to the hoop and getting fouled and then hitting a three. With the score at 68-32, Coach K started emptying the bench a bit. He had Dockery, Redick, Melchionni and Thompson in there along with Sanders. Melch had a couple of good minutes, hitting a wing three with confidence and blowing by several other men to tap in a miss.

After a Dockery pick for a runout, it became the Shav Show. Melch spotted him on the wing for a three, then Duhon found him down low. Shav then pulled up for a 15' jumper and used a shoulder shake to fake out his man and go in for a slam. After an offensive drought where Team Nike pulled with 86-49, Dock broke that up with a rebound basket. JJ Redick, quiet for most of the game, used a pump fake from 15' to hit a jumper and get fouled. At that point, K decided to throw five freshmen out there, everyone but Thompson. They struggled a bit on defense as a unit, but Shav did hit Shelden for a turnaround jumper in the low post (which is clearly Shelden's bread-and-butter shot). The deep reserves came in, with Andy Means hitting a three and Redick hitting a couple of late threes.

Coach K noted that this game featured more open looks from Duke than they'd get in a real game. Still, they did knock them down, to the tune of 17-31 from three. Also encouraging was Duke's rebound margin of +7 (43-36), including 17 offensive boards. More than anything, the game was a chance to see what the players could do given a couple of weeks of practice since the games in London. There are a lot of intriguing parts here, but not yet a complete team.

** Negatives:

1. Foul shooting. While the team was only 6-14 from the line, an equally large problem was the relatively meager number of attempts. This team will need more balance, which means that everyone can't simply fire away from three-even if it worked out well here.

2. Help defense. This led to some open baseline shots for Team Nike. This part of defense always comes along last for Duke, unless someone named Shane Battier is playing for them. How well Shav & Shelden pick up on this will be a key storyline to follow this year.

3. Valuing the ball. 14 isn't a horrid number of turnovers, but with a ballhandler like Duhon out there, the team goal should be under 10 turnovers in every game. Both Duhon & Dock made some mistakes out there.

** Positives;

1. Ball pressure. Dock and Duhon were born to harass ballhandlers, and they combined for an absurd 9 steals. I loved their trapping just past midcourt, especially when a compliant Terrell Baker would pick up his dribble in the face of two onrushing defenders. Both Dock & Duhon are also adept at the "blatant steal" (as they call it when Alana Beard does it).

2. Shooting. Everyone looked smooth and comfortable shooting their jumpers. Special points go to Lee M, who clearly fears no one.

3. Unselfishness. This team loves to pass. Shav & Shelden can pass inside-out or outside-in. Duhon and Dock are both pure point guards who look to set up others first. Even big men Sanders & Thompson had inside-out relocation passes for threes.

Player-by-Player:

** Williams: Shelden is both strong and smooth on the floor. As he slowly becomes accustomed to the level of physicality and overall speed at this level, he becomes more and more comfortable out there. His best trait is his incredible aggressiveness on the boards-he's simply unrelenting. Williams is also a fine shot-blocker and has a great combo of inside/outside scoring tools. About the only thing he did wrong in this game was put the ball on the floor facing the basket as he was trying to drive-it immediately was slapped away. His most impressive play came when he simply reached out a huge hand to a player showing him the ball, forcing a held-ball situation.

** Randolph: He's got post skills galore and isn't afraid to use them. He also has excellent court awareness and looks for his teammates as quickly as he does for his own shot. After a nice but unremarkable first half, he absolutely blitzed Nike in the second half. His range, touch and surprising toughness make tough to stop. Defensively, he has surprised folks with his excellent timing on blocked shots. He was credited with 3 blocks but I counted 4. They weren't of the "get that outta here" variety, but he instead quietly deflected them into the hands of teammates. Shav rarely will do anything spectacular, but he will always do something useful. At one point, he had the ball near the basket but knew that if he went up, his shot would be blocked. Instead, he pump-faked his opponent into fouling him.

** Jones: Dahntay proved that his three point shot was much improved, smoothly hitting a couple of open treys. Folks will have to guard him there this year, because he isn't afraid to take this shot now. Dahntay did force things offensively at times, ignoring a couple of open teammates in an effort to make a Jordanesque drive. When he did that, it resulted in turnovers. When he simply relaxed and let things come to him, he excelled.

** Ewing: Dan had an off shooting night, but all of his attempts were good ones. He was solid on defense, taking a charge, and just missed on a couple of drives. Hopefully he'll come out smoking in his next game, because he really needs to score in double digits on a regular basis.

** Duhon: A number of players had good stats in this game. However, the best player on the court by far was Duhon. He had such a commanding court presence it was as if he was following a script rather than making reads. Chris was a terror on defense and picked his spots wisely on offense. Both of his threes came when someone left him to go guard someone else. He had a spectacular drive when Nike simply didn't body him up and he went all the way in. Getting an assist/turnover ratio of over 3:1 would be a nice goal for the regular season, so it was nice to see him surpass that here with 10 assists and 3 gaffes. Duhon is this team's captain, guide and the team glue. He will be the arbiter of who gets shots when he's making reads, so his teammates must get open and be ready for the ball at any time.

** Horvath: Nick was truly brilliant in his six minutes. While he still doesn't move all that well and he's just an adequate defender, the things he can do to help an offense along are remarkable. He simply knows the system after over three years of practicing it. Nick knows when to attack the rim, where to set screens and how to be confident in taking your shot. He's not a good enough defender to get huge minutes, but he will be Duke's utility player, stepping in to fill in because of foul trouble or making the offense run more smoothly. An excellent 8th/9th man.

** Sanders: Casey has been playing well in practice, but it once again didn't translate over into live action. He did take a couple of long jumpers with confidence, but they just didn't fall. Some nice passes sent his way just bounced off his hands. Casey will definitely play 10-15 minutes a game this year, and I hope game reps help him where practice hasn't in terms of confidence & execution.

** Redick: JJ actually missed a couple of open shots and inexplicably blew a foul shot-he's normally a 90% foul shooter. Still, he did sink 4-8 from three. His best shot was that contested pump-fake. He needs to do be able to hit these kinds of shots because a lot of teams are going to try to blanket him. He's not quick enough to drive by most people, but that pump-fake could result in many trips to the line. JJ's overall maturity was impressive. He looked to set his teammates up with nice passes and was quick to the ball, grabbing 6 rebounds.

**Dockery: Sean looked very impressive out there, especially on defense. He's a pretty good standstill shooter, but his shot becomes awkward when he's on the run. Like many young guards, he also sometimes darts into the lane without having any real idea of what he's going to do next, and that resulted in a charge or two. Still, you can see the genius of Coach K in selecting him for this team. While some of his skills wouldn't be as useful on certain kinds of teams, he becomes incredibly effective in Duke's defense and a tremendously unselfish distributor. Despite being a huge scorer in high school, he's completely bought into Duke's team concept.

** Thompson: Big Mike always plays hard and strong around the basket, but he still looks very uncomfortable out there. He was out of position several times on defense, resulting in several fouls. Mike took an awkward looking jumper that was swatted into the backcourt. As Coach K likes to say, every player runs their own race. Mike is clearly behind the other freshmen, but with his body and potential, he could wind up being a great player down the road.

** Melchionni: Best way to describe him is as Marty Clark Plus. He's medium sized wing without great speed or quickness, but who can jump a bit and hit outside shots. I love his confidence and calm on the court. This isn't a guy who will play major minutes this year, but don't be surprised to see Coach K bring him in in certain pressure situations. Don't be surprised if he has a couple of game-winning baskets in his future.

** Buckner: Andre ran the team for a bit and had a couple of quick assists, including one to Means. With Dockery around, it's unlikely that he'll ever see any major minutes, though one never knows.

** Means: Hit a three and grabbed a board.

** Johnson: The 6-9 soph walk-on had a board and turned the ball over badly once.

** Cameron Craziness: The student section was nearly half-empty at the beginning of the game, but late stragglers served to fill it up a bit more. This was very disappointing for a team that could really use the support. The fans that were there were great, however; I loved the "Let's go freshmen" chant when five of them were out there. The students remembered Donald Little's assorted misdeeds at Cincy that included kidnapping & assault, and chanted "Please don't hurt me" at him.

Reported by Rob Clough, tmc@duke.edu

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