Defense does it for Duke

DURHAM -- Duke felt good about Saturday night's result and Cameron Indoor Stadium was lousy with the emotional evidence.

You saw it in the Duke locker room following the No. 11 Devils' 61-52 victory over No. 18 Georgetown when point guard Greg Paulus happily denied he might have tweaked his right foot during the game.

In fact, six weeks after returning from a left foot injury, he said he had never been hurt in his life.

Paulus, who had just scored all 13 of his points in the second half, refused to let anything distract him or the team from how the Devils surged past the Hoyas late in the second half to win their seventh game of the season.

Duke had trailed for about 30 minutes in the game but regained the lead for good when Paulus tipped a Roy Hibbert miss to himself and scored on the other end to put Duke up 51-49 with 4:55 left in the game.

Fifty-three seconds later, Duke was looking at a short shot clock and Paulus had the ball again. This time he drove the heart of the Georgetown defense and scored on another of what Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski later called "manly finishes."

"He seemed a lot more assertive and aggressive in the second half," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said of Paulus. "Duke is young, a lot like we're young but there are some pretty talented pieces around [Paulus] and he did what good players do."

Through the first seven and a half games of the season, Paulus hadn't been operating comfortably enough to make clutch plays. On Saturday, he scored all of his points when Duke was working its way back into the game.

"That's the most important thing; it wasn't about me at all," Paulus said. "We're down two or tied or up one. ... That's all that was. Whatever baskets we scored to night about us. Nothing about themselves."

Georgetown (4-3), which started a frontline of 6-foot-8, 6-9 and 7-2 players, made Duke earn it by banging with the Devils (7-1), a team built for speed.

How physical was it? You could see it looking at Duke freshman Jon Scheyer after the game while he grinned for reporters through the newly torn, bloody stitches on his upper lip.

"This is the first team we've played that was that physical at multiple positions and was a very big team," said Duke guard DeMarcus Nelson said. "It was a physical game so we had to do all the tough things like rebounding and blocking out."

After watching the Hoyas make 15 of 26 first-half shots, the Devils clamped down to hold the Hoyas to just six made field goals on 23 attempts in the second half.

"I think we just needed to lock down and I think we all understood that," said Scheyer, who added nine points. "It took a little longer than we would have liked but the bottom line is we got the job done so it's all good."

In eight games, the Devils have held seven opponents under 56 points. Duke held the Hoyas to just three points in the final 4:33.

Still neither team could get a grip on the ball and that had a lot to do with the how anemic both offenses were. Both teams made unforced and forced errors while combining for 35 turnovers.

"Whenever anyone asks me about our problems, I say I wish I knew because I'd fix them," Duke forward Josh McRoberts said after scoring 15 points with seven rebounds and six assists.

The Devils looked fine early in the game when Hoyas brought out their 2-3 zone defense and the Devils fired over it. Nelson drained a 3 from the corner then from the left wing for six of his 12 points to put Duke up 6-2 in the first minute of the game.

Driving and kicking out against that zone was a fine idea until the Devils started losing their handle on the ball.

Over the next seven minutes, Duke turned the ball over five times and missed eight shots while the Hoyas cut, passed, and shot their way to a 13-6 lead at the 11:53 mark.

The Hoyas kept coming. They scored three straight buckets on sharp cuts and nice passes inside to build a 24-15 lead with 7:19 left in the half.

By righting themselves defensively after halftime, the Blue Devils showed how much they love playing in Cameron Indoor with the love of the home crowd in effect. The Devils are 6-0 at home this season.

That's another reason to explain Krzyzewski couldn't hold back from hugging Nelson on the sidelines in a fit of happiness at game's end.

"A lot of times at Duke when we have a veteran team, winning is taken for granted," Krzyzewski said. "Our locker room was great tonight and I wanted to set the stage for that on the court. I have to be hard on them but they also have to see us have fun with them."