Short on intensity against Michigan State, Duke basketball learned a tough lesson
The good news for Duke was its number of turnovers dropped.
The bad news was not nearly enough of the Blue Devils’ shots did.
The No. 6 Blue Devils took much better care of the ball Tuesday night against No. 8 Michigan State than they did in beating Coppin State 81-71 Saturday despite 22 turnovers.
But Duke still had too many empty possessions because its shots failed to drop, as its shooting percentage hovered in the high 20s most of the game while the Spartans built a 16-point second-half lead.
A few late 3-pointers after the game was pretty much wrapped up left the Blue Devils with a 75-69 loss in the Champions Classic, but that didn’t change the fact that Duke didn’t look smooth or strong on the offensive end.
Against Coppin State, freshmen DJ Steward (24 points) and Jalen Johnson (19 points, 19 rebounds) dominated as expected against a team from the lowest reaches of Division I.
Things were, predictably, far tougher against a fellow blue-blood program like Michigan State.
“We can make a lot of teams uncomfortable,” Michigan State junior guard Aaron Henry said.
Too many missed shots from the Blue Devils
Johnson, slowed by two first-half fouls that limited him to only seven minutes of play prior to halftime, finished with 11 points on four-of-11 shooting from the floor.
Steward, who earned his first collegiate start, responded by going 0-for-7 from the field to score just six points.
“It’s a different game for him that he has to adjust to,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
The 6-2 guard was part of an unfortunate triumvirate of Blue Devils who missed every field goal they attempted. Sophomore Wendell Moore went 0-for-9. Junior reserve Joey Baker missed all three of his shots -- all 3-pointers -- before fouling out without scoring a point.
Their 0 for 19 played a large role in Duke shooting 32.3% from the field, including an ugly 5 of 23 (21.7%) on 3-pointers. It’s hard to win when two of your starters combine for 0-16 like Steward and Moore did.
Krzyzewski said he’d like to see more movement from his players on offense. The Blue Devils collected only nine assists on their 25 field goals, a sigh the ball movement wasn’t where it needed to be.
But Krzyzewski thought the Blue Devils got enough of the shots they wanted -- both at the rim and open on the perimeter. They just didn’t fall, something he chalked up to his young team not matching Michigan State’s intensity.
“The thing that we did not do was finish,” Krzyzewski said. “In a game that’s very physical where you are playing -- they sub talent and experience. And when you do that, the level of intensity on the defensive end, because they are very good, never wanes. It’s pretty much at a high level the whole time. For us, we are not there yet and it can wane a little bit.”
So while the Blue Devils only committed 12 turnovers, doing so on only 15.4% of their possessions rather than the 28.9 they did against Coppin State, they still only scored .88 points per possession against Michigan State. In basketball’s analytics world, anything below 1 point per possession is not very good.
“They were really compacting the lane,” Duke senior guard Jordan Goldwire said. “It was hard to get dribble drives. I felt like some of our shots were rushed. We just weren’t able to hit tonight.”
Duke didn’t meet Michigan State’s level of intensity
Duke got production from sophomore forward Matthew Hurt, who scored 21 points with 13 rebounds. The bulked-up 6-9 Hurt made 6 of 14 shots and was solid enough to draw fouls and make all eight of his free throw attempts.
But it takes more than one strong performance on offense to beat another top-10 team. Johnson, who has the talent and skills to score at least 15-20 points each game, never found his rhythm after his first half was cut short by foul trouble.
Duke started the second half utilizing Johnson and Hurt aiming to get the offense going after Michigan State led 37-33 at intermission. Instead, Duke hit just 1 of its first 9 shots from the field after halftime and the Spartans pushed their lead into double digits.
“We didn’t meet their level of intensity like we should,” Krzyzewski said.
With Elon pausing its program due to a positive COVID test and postponing its Sunday game with Duke, the Blue Devils only have a game with Bellarmine next on Friday. But, after that, another tough Big Ten team arrives in No. 5 Illinois on Dec. 8.
That intensity will need a boost to aid an offense that needs to be better against that kind of team.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 12:24 AM.