The Blue Devils had a mission against the La Salle Explorers and they accomplished it – it just took them until the second half to actually execute that mission. The Blue Devils, once again, had a slow start but turned on the juice in the second half to cruise to a 95-66 win. To the Explorers credit they kept the game close only enduring a halftime deficit of 10, despite shooting just 36.7% from the field. Even with the Blue Devils shooting 48.6% from the field they still could only muster the aforementioned 10 point advantage.
The second half was a completely different story for the Blue Devils who used the first 10 minutes to go on a 30-19 run and push the lead to 69-48. The run was fueled by Kyle Filipowski, who scored 13 points in the first 10 minutes of play in the second half. Filipowski, despite nursing a sore ankle would go on to score 14 of his 17 points in the second half. Even though Filipowski turned it around in the second, half playing nearly flawless basketball, the night belonged to Tyrese Proctor and Sean Stewart. Proctor had arguably his best game as a Blue Devils scoring a career high 22 points, going 7 of 11 from the floor including 2-3 from the 3-point line. Proctor also added 7 rebounds and 4 assists to zero turnovers. Sean Stewart also notched a career-high double-double, scoring 16 points on 7-9 shooting and pulling down 10 rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench.
The Bad:
The slow starts for the Blue Devils in this early part of the season are concerning – especially against lesser competition. The energy was definitely off early for Duke. Defensively Duke gave up 30 paint points to a team that starts 1 player over 6’5, interior defense was not optimal against the Explorers.
The Good:
Duke’s second half was as good as the first half was bad. They controlled the entire half and the Explorers never threatened. Duke shot 53.8% in the second half from beyond the arc on their way to 40% for the game. The Blue Devils also only turned the ball over 1 time in the second half and only 5 for the entire game.
It’s a glass half-full / half-empty scenario. Obviously you want your team to start fast but the second half adjustments mean that you have a coachable squad that responds to coaching – so look at it any way you see fit I suppose.
