Nolan Smith Powers Duke In ACC Opener

The Duke Blue Devils opened ACC play with a win, but it wasn’t easy.

For the first 15 minutes, Duke and Miami were involved in tight game full of poor shooting and sloppy ball handling. After Miami cut the lead to 22-20, Nolan Smith took over for Duke.

Smith scored 13 straight points for Duke, including three 3-pointers in a 90 second span to stretch the lead to 13 and Duke never looked back. He scored a season high 28 points on 9-of-15 shooting and played all 40 minutes.

Andre Dawkins added 16 points and Kyle Singler had 14 as Duke was held under 75 points for the first time this season. They only shot 43% for the game and turned the ball over 13 times, but their defense held Miami in check. Mason Plumlee came off the bench and had 10 rebounds and four blocks.

They held Miami to under 37% shooting; and if you remove Reggie Johnson from the mix, the Hurricanes shot 27% for the game. The Blue Devils seemed content to let Johnson get his and clamp down on the Miami outside shooters, namely Malcolm Grant and Durand Scott, who shot just 8-of-26. Miami was 3-for-17 shooting threes as Duke had a hand in the face of every Hurricane shooter.

Reggie Johnson did expose a weakness on Duke. He was the biggest inside player they have faced all season and the 6-11, 300 lb, center was an unstoppable force inside for Miami, he shot 9-of-10 and had five offensive rebounds. He led the Hurricanes with 22 points and over-powered every Duke player down low.

Just as Duke didn’t have an answer for Johnson, Miami had no answer for Nolan Smith.

After being challenged by the coaches, Smith has accepted his new roles -as point guard and leader- exceptionally well. The game against Miami marked the fourth straight game in which he has scored 22 or more points.

Since Kyrie Irving went out with his injury, Smith is averaging 20 points, 5.2 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 1.2 steals (all above his season average) in five games. He is also turning the ball over less since becoming the primary ball handler with only 12 turnovers in those five games. For the season he is shooting almost 54% from the field and over 40% from three.

Smith is making a case for himself as a Player of the Year candidate with his stellar play. One can only hope that he won’t have to play 40 minutes a game for the rest of the season because he won’t be able to stand up to a full season in this defense and offense.

This season Duke was playing a full court pressing defense before Irving went out, without him in the lineup they’ve have fallen back to a half-court pressure defense, but its still a pressure defense. Playing like this for 40 minutes a game in ACC play will tire Smith (or anyone out), especially if they only plan on playing three guards for the rest of the season.

The first ACC game also showed us the rotation that Coach K will most likely use during ACC play. Neither of the freshmen, Tyler Thornton or Josh Hairston, played last night and it looks like Duke will be going with a seven man rotation during ACC play.

The win was the 23rd in a row for Duke, tied for the second longest streak in Duke history.

Life Without Irving? Not The End Of The Road

Did the injury to Kyrie Irving happen to the right Duke team at the right time?

When top ranked teams lose one of their top three players things usually go south from there. Duke has been lucky in the past years that they haven’t had an injury that crippled the team, leading to a 500 season or worse.

Can you imagine last years’ team losing Jon Scheyer? They most certainly don’t win the National Championship and probably don’t even get past the Sweet 16. Who becomes the third scoring option on that team? How slow do they have to play with just two guards?

What about the 2005-06 team losing Shelden Williams? Who plays inside next to freshman Josh McRoberts? Freshmen Jamal Boykin and Eric Boatang? How about an undersized and outweighed Lee Melchionni? No chance in hell that team starts 27-1 or wins the ACC Championship. JJ Redick would have needed to average 40+ points per game just to keep that team afloat. It would have been fun to watch Redick hoist 15 3-pointers a game, but they wouldn’t have got very far.
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This years team has been able to handle the loss of Irving because of the quality of their depth. Without question this is the deepest Duke team in recent memory. The 2008-09 team may have been deeper in players (nine people averaged 12 minutes a game), but this team has more talent.

The trio of healthy guards (Nolan Smith, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins) may be the best at Duke in 10 years. The big men may be the most athletic ever in Durham. Having a pair of All-American candidates (Smith and Singler) definately helps save this team from free falling back into the pack of weak ACC teams.

They have looked good in the three games without Irving, but they haven’t played anyone that could scare them. Not only has losing one of their best three players happened during a season where they had plenty of talent, but his injury occurred at the right time of the season. Duke has played just three games in the past three weeks, all against cupcakes. This has allowed them to make the adjustment to an Irving-free offense at game speed without a real threat of losing.

While the injury to Irving removed the ‘over-whelming National Champion favorite’ tag from Duke, it hasn’t crippled them. Now the tag reads ‘another Championship contender’, which is fine by me because it means we still have a good chance to repeat. With or without Irving.

The Men Duke Need To Step Up

The next 10 games on the Duke schedule just may be the most important on their schedule. They begin with two more cupcakes before starting ACC play against Miami on January 2nd. After another step out against a non-conference foe (UAB on Jan. 5) they play six straight ACC teams, including returning to the scene of last seasons worst loss; at NC State.

Even though they may be important, these games may be the easiest on the schedule. None of the next ten opponents are ranked; although that could change, but not by much. Right now Boston College is the only team among them that is even receiving votes in any poll.

In the absence of Kyrie Irving there are a couple of positions that need to step up for Duke to remain at the top of the polls.

-The Back Up Point Guard
When Kyrie Irving went down it was clear that Nolan Smith would be the primary ballhandler for Duke. The bigger question was who going to back Smith up.

Nolan Smith is far from the sophomore who was stripped of his point guard duties two years ago. He has matured from just another in a long line of good college guards who played at Duke (Chris Duhon, Daniel Ewing, Sean Dockery, etc) to one of the best three Duke guards of the last 10 years (behind Jason Williams & JJ Redick). He will be able to handle the point while Irving is on the sidelines -no matter how long that it- because he has turned himself into a late first round pick, something that seemed impossible just two years ago.

The real issue is who will run the point while Smith is taking a breather. He is not going to play the 36-37 minutes he played last year because of the pace of this years team. He will average closer to 30-31 a game, leaving about 10 minutes for someone else to run the team.

Based on the first two games without Irving, it appears that the job will fall to Seth Curry and Tyler Thornton. Curry averaged five assists in the two games, while Thornton played his best game of the season in the second game.

Curry, a sophomore, is the stronger of the two as a back-up point guard option. During his red shirt season Curry might not have played in any games, but he spent the season running the point in practices against the starting five. His game is also better suited to be the back-up point guard (as opposed to the other guard on Duke’s bench, Andre Dawkins) because of his ability to drive to the basket. Dawkins is more of a spot up shooter, while Curry can create his own shot.

Thornton, the only other true point guard, should have no problems with the duties. The freshman’s downside is that he had only played seven minutes in the five games leading up to Irving’s injury, all during garbage time. Now he will be expected to handle the ball during ACC play. The good news is that he isn’t going to be leaned upon to do anything but be a back up, probably even the third choice to run the point. The increase Thornton sees in playing time will only strengthen Duke’s bench if Irving returns.

-The Big Men
Duke has yet to play a team that could physically dominate them inside, so the toughness of the front line (the Plumlees and Ryan Kelly) has yet to be called into question. ACC play will expose them to a more physical style of play. They will need to step up and battle like last years’ front court for Duke to have any chance at a repeat.

After a slow start Miles Plumlee has become more aggressive. 23 points and 13 rebounds in the past two games, his best back-to-back games of the season. Besides being more aggressive he is also becoming more comfortable with his role in the offense, doing whatever they need him to do. He looks destined to become another Duke player who trades personal accolades and stats to do what’s best for the team, following in the footsteps of David McClure and Lance Thomas.

His brother, Mason, is following an opposing vector. Since Irving went out, he has managed just five points and nine rebounds, his worst two game stretch of the season, but its more of a case of him not being needed in the offense, then playing poorly. Against Bradley, Duke played ‘bombs away’, attempting 33 three-pointers, all but ignoring the inside game. Then versus Saint Louis, Nolan Smith was given more leeway in the offense and took advantage of the freedom. Mason has already proven that he can take over a game (i.e. Marquette), so these last two games are more of an anomaly than what we should expect. He, like the rest of the Duke team, is trying to find himself in the new offense.

Kelly has shown improvement over last year, but he hasn’t been tested down low, but then that’s really not his game. He prefers to step out, set screens and drain the occasional three. He is shooting 58% from three this year, which would be more impressive if he had more than 12 attempts. He will need to learn to play inside more because the Plumlee’s have shown a propensity for picking up fouls and ending up on the bench. Kelly still needs another 15-20 pounds of muscle to become a legitimate power forward in college basketball, especially in a conference like the ACC.

If Duke gets strong play from the back-up point guards and their big men then they will be able to handle any team remaining on their schedule and will end up in Houston. If they fall short, other teams will learn to expose the Duke weaknesses and make life difficult for the Blue Devils.

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Duke: The Quarter Season Update

At the quarter pole Duke is in the exact same position in the polls as they were when the season began, but are in a completely different place. You probably wouldn’t have been able to get good odds on Duke being anything but 10-0 at this point, but with the loss of Kyrie Irving has fundamentally altered the way Duke will continue this season.

What We Have Learned:
-Kyrie Irving is the best point guard in Durham since Jason Williams. He has more than lived up to the hype that surrounded him.

-Duke has the deepest team in a long time. Before Irving went out, eight players were averaging 15 minutes or more. Now that he’s out, they will be going even deeper on the bench. In the past two games, both Josh Hairston and Tyler Thornton saw a significant increase in their minutes and Duke may end up with 10 players with 10+ minutes per game.

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Biggest Surprises:
-The play of the guards. It became clear that the back court of Irving and Nolan Smith is the best in the nation, and the Duke ‘B’ back court of Andre Dawkins and Seth Curry isn’t that bad either. The four of them are averaging almost 53 points, 12 rebounds, 14 assists and 4.5 steals a game.

Biggest Disappointments:
-The play of the big men. The Plumlees (Miles and Mason) and Ryan Kelly were supposed to be just like last years front court, but only more athletic with more scoring ability. So far they haven’t lived up to the expectations of the off-season. They have just three double-doubles (all from Mason) and are averaging less than 20 points between them, this isn’t what we were promised.
Part of this can be blamed on the stellar play of the guards who are keeping the big men off the floor as Coach K has gone back to lots of three-guard looks. The other part could be from the lack of strength of the trio. Sure they are big, but none of them have the strength of Brian Zoubek. The Big Z was a force at the end of last season and it wasn’t because he was more athletic than the other guy.

-The possibility that Irving plays just eight games as a Blue Devil. Nobody wants this to be true, but there is a possibility that we will never see Irving again on the floor in a Duke uniform.

Best Game:
-Kansas State
In what was a road game, Duke dismantled then #4 Kansas State 82-68 holding pre-season All-American Jacob Pullen to just four points. They turned the Wildcats over 21 times and played the best team defense of the season as they won the O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic. The K-State game was also Irving’s best game of November and a  pre-cursor for his coming out party against Michigan State a week later.

Up next: What to expect in the next 10 games

No Kyrie Irving… No Problem

The Duke Blue Devils may have to learn to live without Kyrie Irving, but it doesn’t appear the learning curve is going to be steep.

Nolan Smith led the team in scoring in his second game as primary ball-handler, scoring 22 points in a 84-47 win over Saint Louis. After scoring just two points in the first game Smith is “getting more comfortable running the point guard position, and the coaches have been telling me, once I give it up, they want me to stay in scoring mindset,” he said. “Just attacking, looking to make plays — kind of like [Jon Scheyer] did last year. That’s what they’re telling me to do.”

Its good the coaches want him to make plays more like Jon Scheyer, all Scheyer did was lead Duke to a National Championship, but Smith needs to remember that he is quicker and more explosive than Scheyer. In the Bradley game he seemed to forget this, settling for shots and looking for others. He did have 10 assists, but was 0-for-8 from the field and looked nothing like the player he was last season.

Smith was that player against Saint Louis. Driving to the hoop -often with spectacular results- and not settling for the outside shot. He only had five assists, but played a much better game, running the offense more efficiently.

Two games without Irving, two completely different looks. Just like in previous seasons when injuries hit, Coach K has shuffled rotations and offenses to find what works best.

On Wednesday against Bradley, Duke was a jump shooting team, attempting 33 three-pointers. Duke attempted only 10 three-pointers versus Saint Louis, preferring to drive to the hoop. Coincidentally, that translated into 25 free throw attempts on Saturday. They managed just 10 free throws in the Bradley game.

Seth Curry added 11 points and Josh Hairston had a career high 12 points in 15 minutes. Before the injury to Kyrie Irving, Hairston was heading for a season of DNPs on his stat sheet. The subtraction of a point guard, has altered the rotation to allow the wing forward more playing time and he has responded well.

The other freshman, Tyler Thornton, will also see more playing time. The only other true point guard had a career best four assists against Saint Louis as his role continues to change without Irving.

Duke enters finals week a perfect 10-0 and doesn’t play again until next Monday, at home against Elon. Expect more adjustments and different combinations on the floor as Duke learns to cope without their stellar point guard running the show.

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