This was JJ Redick Week for Duke, as the senior
smashed 2 significant records: Curtis Staples' NCAA 3 point record and Johnny Dawkins'
Duke scoring record. This was a good week to
do it, since the Devils got to play a bad (but not untalented) Wake Forest club and a middling Miami team. Hopefully
JJ can get the ACC record out of the way against Georgia Tech, because it's hard for
everyone involved to avoid distraction, especially with the intense media focus. What's been remarkable is how level-headed Redick
has been about the whole thing. With everyone
in the universe telling him how great he is, Redick's focus hasn't wavered a bit.
Since I saw him play in a high school
AAU tournament, it was obvious that Redick was a remarkable shooter and fierce competitor. It was also clear that he had limitations as a
player. Post players are taught to have a move
and a countermove in order to get a good shot inside, but a long-range shooter like Redick
didn't have a good plan B when he didn't have a clear look at the basket. His ballhandling, feet and general shiftiness just
weren't advanced enough to get it done against elite defenders or teams that singled him
out. That played itself out in his first two
seasons, when JJ struggled in the NCAA tournament. His
failures in the UConn game in 2004 inspired him to reinvent his game, and he's been a work
in progress ever since.
Much has been made of JJ losing weight
and having a limitless amount of endurance. While
his footspeed is a bit better than earlier in his career, the difference is not pronounced
enough to make much of a difference against most players.
What is noticeable is that his reaction time seems faster. With the new moves he's practiced, his quick
trigger makes those shots unguardable. In
particular, I'm thinking of his turnaround jumper when posting up baseline, his step-back
jumper just inside the three point line, and his driving floater. Having more options has led to Redick becoming a
smarter player. With an expanded arsenal,
Redick has become better at decision-making, knowing what move to use against which
defense. The Wake and Miami games were great examples of his sharpened
acumen for the game, and underlined some of the other things JJ does to help his team.
Wake reminds me a lot of the 1995 Duke
team--and in some regards, are a mirror image to what might have happened to Duke this
season. They lost a transcendent talent in
Chris Paul (along with several underrated role players) but returned two excellent players
in Justin Gray and Eric Williams. The Deacs
have been forced to plug in young players who probably aren't ready into significant
roles. The result has been a fractured team
that has shown flashes of promise but that breaks down defensively at crucial moments, and
doesn't have the unity to bounce back. The
Devils in 1995 were just like that, losing a number of games down the stretch. They frequently looked like they didn't know how to
win. This year's Duke team lost a fine player
in Dan Ewing and returned two great ones, but has had to integrate a number of young and
unproven players. The maturity of Redick and
Shelden Williams, along with the steady leadership of Sean Dockery and Lee Melchionni,
combined with the coaching of Mike Krzyzewski, prevented this scenario from coming to pass
for Duke. The maturity of Redick and Williams
showed in that both worked on their games over the summer, adding new wrinkles to their
games that have made them tougher to guard. The
same can't be said for Gray and E.Williams--while both are still fine players, they looked
pretty much the same. That made all the
difference.
Early in the game, Duke wisely went to
Josh McRoberts. JMR has been tearing it up
lately, a combination of his teammates having more faith in him and Josh aggressively
looking to score. As noted last week,
McRoberts has weapons that none of his teammates possess.
When he's aggressive, he's by far the most versatile player on Duke's
roster. He showed that off early when he went
ridiculously high to snare a pass from Shelden and hammer down a baseline lob dunk. Then he took a pass from Greg Paulus on the wing
and confidently drained a three. After that,
he was fouled attacking the basket and sank 2 free throws.
 Wake closed the early gap to 11-0 and
later 18-11, but Redick got involved. After
driving for a score and pulling up for a three, he fed McRoberts for a dunk, then threw
him a pass that JMR smashed down over Wake's Kyle Visser. Josh
then dished to Dockery for a three that gave Duke a 13 point lead. Redick scored Duke's
next 8 points as Wake simply couldn't keep up. Duke opened up a 20 point lead but lost
focus down the stretch of the first half as Wake went on a 6-1 run to make it 52-38 at the
half. The scary thing is that Wake shot 57%
and nailed both threes attempted. Duke simply responded by shooting 61% and hitting 5
threes, while forcing 10 turnovers.
Wake had a chance early in the second
half to make it a game. They had a couple of
opportunities to bring Duke's lead into single figures, and Gray couldn't get it done
despite having a couple of good looks from three. The
Devils rarely allow an opponent too many chances to come back, and quickly responded with
an 8-0 run engineered by Greg Paulus. He found Lee Melchionni inside, Dock for a 19'
jumper and finished a couple of drives of his own. Five
minutes into the second half, the Devils once again had a commanding 21 point lead.
The Devils continued to pour it on,
with Redick scoring 8 straight points at one juncture.
That gave Duke a 27 point lead with eight minutes left. Wake scored a few points down the stretch, but the
lead never dipped below 20. The Devils held
Wake to just 28% shooting in the second half. Though
Wake got 19 offensive rebounds, they only managed to score 12 points from them--just a
third of what they could have earned. Meanwhile,
the Devils scored an astounding 31 points off turnovers, and 14 via fast break.
The one thing that McRoberts had
problems with in this game was staying out of foul trouble.
The good news is that he's picking up a lot of his fouls out of
aggressiveness--the two he picked up in the first half were both offensive. Now that he's terrorizing opposing defenses with his
dunking, shooting and post-ups, as well as getting rebounds, opponents are going to try to
bait him into stupid fouls. It's the last
thing a young big man has to learn to avoid. Still,
he scored 16 points in just 20 minutes of play.
Moving on to the Miami game, Duke threw a barrage of three point
bombs at the Hurricanes early on. Six of
Duke's first seven field goals were threes, which helped them hold off a hard-charging Miami team. Redick
started his own coronation party with a step-back jumper.
Williams passed to McRoberts for another three. Dockery hit Redick for yet another three. McRoberts stole the ball and dished to an alert
Redick, who spotted up for a very deep trey to give Duke an 11-2 lead.
The canes crawled to within 3 points, but threes
from Redick and Melchionni gave Duke a bit more breathing room. Just five minutes into the game, Redick had 11
points. Miami continued to fight back, going to a zone that
flummoxed the Devils. The closed to within
17-16 but couldn't get a lead. DeMarcus Nelson
hit a three to give Duke some more breathing room, but Miami fought to a 24-24 tie ten minutes into the
half. Redick wasn't forcing things, but Paulus
wasn't doing a good job getting the ball to him or Williams.
Dockery scored on a floater and Williams hit 2 free throws, but Miami tied it up at 28 and 30.
Finally, Redick drove and sank a 17'
jumper, and then hit a three to put Duke up by 5. Nelson
quietly was getting good shots against the zone and knocking them down,
hitting threes that put Duke up by 6 and then 10. Down
the stretch of the first half, Duke was able to attack inside as Miami lost focus for a
few possessions. Williams hit a turnaround
jumper, and then McRoberts threw down a lob from Dockery. Miami got a bit frustrated and
started to foul, including an intentional foul on McRoberts.
Cane coach Frank Haith got whistled for complaining about the foul
disparity, giving Redick 2 easy points. He
finished the half with 22 points and Duke built a 16 point lead thanks to hitting 18-19
from the foul line and 9-15 from three. Incredibly,
Miami had 45 field goal attempts in the first half but only hit 42% of them--compared to
26 field goal attempts for 62% with the Devils.
Much like in the Wake game, the Canes
went on a run to start the second half, to the tune of 8-3.
They had a chance to cut it to single digits, but took a bad shot. Melchionni tipped in a miss to end the run, one of
several big plays he had in this game. Miami
once again closed to within 11 with the ball, but again couldn't score. Nelson drove and was fouled and hit both, and
Redick drained a three to put Duke up by 16.
Over the next three minutes, Miami went
on their last push with a 7-1 run. One more
time, they had an opportunity to cut the lead to single figures, and couldn't get it done. This time, Duke knocked them out with a 12-1 run
that was earned through Shelden's hard work: 7 points, including a stickback. Redick's three with four minutes left not only broke
Johnny D's record, but it put Duke up by 20.
I liked what Lee did against Miami. He had 3 important rebounds, including that
stickback. He also took a charge on what could
have been a momentum-altering play for Miami. Melch
just had a couple of plays in both games, but he's now getting more efficient in reduced
minutes.
The reason why Lee's minutes are
decreasing is the re-emergence of Nelson. Quietly,
he's done a great job of scoring and rebounding. He
had 10 points, mostly off the dribble, against Wake, along with 7 rebounds. With Miami
going zone, Nelson loaded up from three and sank 3 of them, and also hit 4 foul shots. There's no question that his shooting form has
returned to where it was early in the year. Against
a Miami lineup that used 3 guards, Nelson was crucial in slowing them down.
Duke limited Miami's looks from three
(1-11!), allowing them to penetrate. Only
Guillermo Diaz was able to take advantage of this with 23 points. A team with lesser
talent like Miami or Wake needs to get contributions from all five players to beat
Duke--especially with Duke's role players continuing to play well. The Devils had 4 in double figures against both
Wake and Miami: Redick, Williams, McRoberts and Nelson.
Dockery hasn't been far behind, averaging 8 ppg in the two contests. That scoring pressure, along with attacking the
basket on a consistent basis, helped make up for difficulties on the boards and bad
decisions resulting in turnovers.
 Greg Paulus was quite efficient against
Wake, but looked anxious and distracted against Miami.
For some reason, he acted as though he had to win the game on his own, as he
took bad shots and threw careless passes into the zone.
This did give Nelson a chance to run point for a while. After getting chewed
out by Coach K in the Wake game, he wisely backed off on Paulus here. Greg does need to become more consistent, but his
task is a difficult one--especially against quick guards.
He's going to have games like at Maryland, where he dominates, but there
will be more games like the Miami one ahead of him as well.
This week gave the team some
much-needed rest. No travel, with games
several days apart. After a brutal stretch,
the team needed this. This sets up the last
four regular season games. While only one will
come against a ranked opponent (UNC), all four will be difficult. Georgia Tech has been close to winning all year,
but has had trouble closing out opponents. They
did upset NC State at home, and their chippy/athletic style will bother Duke. Temple in Philly is another difficult matchup,
considering their matchup zone and their rough reputation.
The toughest of the four games will be FSU on the road. With Al Thornton, the 'noles match up well with Duke
and played Duke to overtime in Durham. Then
comes a return home with a UNC team that's playing quite well. Duke's next ACC win clinches the league outright,
and hopefully they'll continue their strong road performances.
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