I have to be completely honest. Going into this Stanford game, I worried. I worried that Maxime Raynaud had a distinct advantage against the Duke bigs in terms of what he could do offensively, and I wondered how Duke would guard him. I should have known that when Duke started the game with an alley-oop dunk from Khaman Maluach on their first trip down the floor that it was going to be a good game. Duke went up, 6-0 before Stanford hit a 3 point shot. The Cardinal battled back to tie the game at 13, before a Tyrese Proctor 3 followed by a Cooper Flagg 3, then but a 10-4 run from Duke took the lead to 14.
In the first half of the game, Raynaud was not efficient but did have 18 of Stanford’s 34 points, but it took him 16 shots to do it. Duke seemed unbothered by his 18 points as they jumped out to a 15 point halftime lead against the Cardinal. Once again, the Blue Devils did not rebound the basketball well in the first stanza, with Stanford grabbing 18 to Duke’s 15. Included in that 18 rebounds for Stanford were 7 offensive boards, which they converted to 7 points. The Blue Devils countered with efficiency on the offensive end, only turning the basketball over 1 time on the half, while also shooting 58.6% from the field. Conversely, Stanford had 6 giveaways that Duke turned into 8 points. Tyrese Proctor ended the first half with 17 points to lead the Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils came out with energy after the halftime break, which showed in their defensive effort. The Blue Devils shut down Stanford and the ACC’s leading scorer, only allowing him 1 point in the second half as Duke went on an extended 24-10 run in the first 6:24 of the second half, led by Cooper Flagg’s 7 points. Duke never really looked back, scoring 57 points in the second half while only allowing the Cardinal 36 points on 38.7% shooting in the second stanza. The Blue Devils continually used crisp ball movement to pummel the Stanford defense, assisting on 23 baskets and only turning the ball over 5 times the entire game. Rebounding the basketball has been an issue for Duke as of late, they won the rebounding battle against Cal but had been out-rebounded their 3 previous game. Duke went into the half with a 3 rebound deficit, but course-corrected and ended the game with an 8 rebound advantage.
Tyrese Proctor led the Blue Devils with 23 points, hitting 5 3-point shots and dishing 4 assists. Proctor logged his fifth career 20-point game, third this season and second in Duke’s last three games. The last five games has seen Proctor average 19.4 points and is shooting 18-of-37 (.486) from beyond the arc and 36-of-65 (.554). Cooper Flagg scored 19 points in his 28 minutes, shooting 7 for 13 from the field and hitting half of this 3 point shots. Flagg also added 6 assists and 2 steals. Freshman Khaman Maluach added 17 points, 2 points off of his career high. The freshman finished the game with a team-high six rebounds and one block. Sion James, along with Flagg added 6 assists each, James also added 14 points. In Duke’s last eight games, the graduate transfer has collected 32 dimes and only 6 turnovers.
