Close games are probably 70% luck and 30% execution. Last year, we lost a lot of close games because we relied entirely on the luck component - the '06-'07 Devils were not a team that executed very well down the stretch. This season's team has executed substantially better, and that has helped swing the luck back in Duke's favor a little bit. That's not saying that Duke was lucky to have won either this game or the Marquette game - only that this year's team is better suited for the late-and-tight situations than last year's team (which lost almost every late-and-tight game after Dec. 1).
Here's the HD Box:
| O. Poss | D. Poss | +/- | Pts | 2PM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | FGA | Ast | TO | STL | BLK | ORB | DRB | |
| Henderson | 60 | 58 | +16 | 21/66 | 7-14 | 1-3 | 4-5 | 17/42 | 4/14 | 4/60 | 0/58 | 3/51 | 1/25 | 7/33 |
| Thomas | 48 | 47 | +10 | 4/50 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 2/35 | 0/16 | 0/48 | 0/47 | 0/49 | 2/21 | 0/38 |
| Paulus | 60 | 59 | +7 | 11/66 | 1-1 | 3-6 | 0-0 | 7/46 | 4/19 | 3/60 | 1/59 | 0/54 | 0/28 | 4/33 |
| Singler | 56 | 57 | +3 | 14/58 | 3-5 | 2-5 | 2-4 | 10/43 | 3/16 | 3/56 | 0/57 | 1/52 | 1/27 | 11/34 |
| King | 22 | 20 | +1 | 3/25 | 0-2 | 1-4 | 0-3 | 6/20 | 1/7 | 1/22 | 0/20 | 0/17 | 3/14 | 0/7 |
| Zoubek | 7 | 8 | +1 | 0/11 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0/6 | 0/3 | 0/7 | 0/8 | 0/7 | 0/3 | 0/3 |
| Smith | 14 | 16 | -1 | 0/13 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0/11 | 0/4 | 1/14 | 1/16 | 0/14 | 0/8 | 1/10 |
| Scheyer | 48 | 48 | -2 | 15/55 | 2-4 | 2-4 | 5-5 | 8/41 | 2/14 | 1/48 | 1/48 | 0/43 | 0/27 | 4/22 |
| McClure | 0 | 1 | -2 | 0/0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 0/0 | 0/1 | 0/1 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
| Nelson | 55 | 56 | -3 | 11/51 | 1-4 | 2-3 | 3-6 | 7/41 | 3/15 | 2/55 | 0/56 | 1/52 | 3/27 | 2/35 |
| Duke | 74 | 74 | +6 | 79 | 16-32 | 11-25 | 14-23 | 57 | 17/27 | 16/74 | 3/74 | 5/68 | 10/36 | 30/43 |
| 0.500 | 0.440 | 0.609 | 62.96 | 21.62 | 4.05 | 7.35 | 27.78 | 69.77 |
It's tough to say without having seen the game, but these numbers suggest that Thomas had the most success of all our bigs defending the pick-and-roll. It was Davidson's bread and butter offense, and the fact that they scored just 40 points in the 47 possessions while he was on the court at least raises the possibility that his presence helped cut down those easy baskets. Also, notice the assist distribution among the Duke players - two with 4, two with 3, and four others with at least 1 assist. The Devils may not have a dominant assist-man this year, but the team as a whole moves and shares the ball well.
Duke team and player stats and lineup stats are updated through today's game. For ACC stats, I've decided to drop my coverage, and refer you here for player stats, and here for team stats. Once the conference slate gets started, I'll likely resume the team conference-only stats, but I doubt I'll have time to maintain the player leaderboard.
3 comments:
How do the relative efficiencies of UNC and Duke against Davidson compare?
I listened to part of the Duke game, and they appeared to be up easily in the 1st half (~16 pts), not sure what happened to tighten it up later -- well, presumably it was Curry.
UNC-Davidson was more of a defensive game, while Duke-Davidson was a better offensive game. UNC put up just a 93.5 offensive efficiency, which was a worse performance than any game last season (it has since been topped - or bottomed, depending on your perspective - just barely, with a 93.0 against Ohio St.). Carolina already has three offensive performances in the 90s, which is one more than all of last season.
Can't authoritatively answer the second question, as I didn't see the game, but my understanding is that it's some combination of our shooting going a little cold and them pick-and-rolling us to death.
Duke took a 43-28 lead in the first half and looked comfortably in control. After a couple defensive lapses, the score was 43-32 at half. Coming out into the 2nd half, Duke turned it over twice and Paulus launched an ill-advised, contested 3 that was basically an airball straight into Curry's hands. Off of the first 2 possessions, Davidson scored 5 points, and Curry hit a 3 in transition after the Paulus airball.
After that, Duke calmed down and controlled the game, taking as much as a 12 point lead with under 5 minutes to go.
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