Project defensive scoresheet: Duke 61 UVA 58

Coming off an ACC-opening win that most Duke fans, and I suspect coaches and players as well, felt was much tighter than it should’ve been against expected bottom feeder Georgia Tech, the Devils faced a major step up in competition as Tony Bennett’s Virginia Cavaliers came to town.  With the exception of the 2006-2007 team, this is a program that has been mediocre at best, making only one NCAA Tournament appearance in the last decade.

But things feel different since Bennett took the job.  Now in his third year, he had the Cavaliers sitting at 14-1, riding a 12-game winning streak, and ranked in the top 25 after their one point win over Miami in their ACC opener.  Their most impressive win thus far was a 12 point decision over a solid Michigan squad.

This is a team that clearly is defense-oriented, as they are giving up only 50 ppg, including a low of 35 (!) against Drexel.  Nothing easy against these guys.  But they are offensively challenged, averaging only 66 ppg, and having exceeded 70 points in only three of their 15 games.

But they have one extremely dangerous weapon:  Mike Scott.  The 6’8″ senior, averaging 16 points and 9 boards, is as versatile and tough a forward as the Devils have faced this year, along with Kansas’s Thomas Robinson.  He is a shoo-in for all-ACC, and has an excellent chance to be the league’s MVP.  Given some of Duke’s defensive challenges this year, Scott figured to be a load.

Bennett has done a good job in surrounding Scott with some effective perimeter players.  Joe Harris averages about 12 and Sammy Zeglinski 9 or so, but both have the potential to get hot and make things very difficult for an opponent who has to, by necessity, focus its defense on Scott.  Big man Assane Sene is a rebounder and shot blocker, but is not expected to contribute much offensively.

Duke struggled mightily in the first half, scoring only 28 points against UVA’s tough D.  Mike Scott didn’t struggle.  Not at all. He scored 16 in the half, in a variety of ways, and at the half the Wahoos led by 4.  Nervous time in Cameron.

The Devils methodically built a 9 point advantage midway through the second half, but then went 3 1/2 minutes without scoring, and UVA was back in the game.  Duke led by 6 at 61-55 with 2:16 to go, but did not score again, and had to be thankful for some missed UVA shots in those last two minutes, including two in the final seconds – one of which was a 3 point attempt that would have sent the game to OT.  Again, the Devils survived, winning 61-58.

Coach K praised the defense in his post-game comments.  Scott was tough, and we did contain him a lot better in the second half, as he finished with 23 and 9.  Zeglinski and Jontel Evans took the double bagel, though, combining to shoot 0-14.  The only real help Scott had was Joe Harris, who finished with 14.

OK so let’s take a look at the defensive chart for this game:

What I liked was our bigs’ defense, especially the Plumlees. All 3 bigs were very active, and provided outstanding help for the perimeter guys and for each other all night long. Not surprisingly then, all three graded out with a better DRating than the team overall.  In this game, UVA ran a lot of screens on the side of the floor that required the ballhandler to keep his dribble alive as he made reads as to which way to go with the dribble and to hit cutters with precision passes. This was difficult to defense, and required a lot of help, and our big guys rose to the challenge.

Miles Plumlee continued his performance as our best big man defender.  Dude had a DRating of 81, almost 20 full points better than the team, though he did only play 15 minutes.  If I had to pick a Defensive Player of the Game, I guess I’d pick Miles, because his numbers are so good and nobody else’s really stood out.  But because of his limited minutes, it really should go to the team.

Of our perimeter guys, I thought Tyler had the best overall game at the defensive end, both with respect to the numbers contained in this chart and other observations and charting I did. In relatively limited minutes he was disruptive, did better at staying in front of his man, helped where needed, denied passes, and was just pretty solid.  No surprise, he had the best numbers of our smaller guys.

A discussion of our defense in this game, though, would not be complete without talking about Andre Dawkins.  Coach K praised Andre after the game, stating that this was perhaps the best defense Andre has played since he’s been at Duke.  My head was spinning when I heard that.  Huh?  I know.  I get it.  I trail Coach K but 900 wins or so, but Andre’s defense in this game was (whispering now) terrible.  I say that from the eyeball test.  I say that from looking at his numbers in the chart, from his 19% stop percentage to his bloated DRating of 118.5, over 17 points above the team’s.  And I actually did a play-by-play account of each instance in which Andre was involved defensively, both his good plays and his bad.  It’s available at DukeBasketballReport.com.  That analysis showed an awful lot of poor defensive play.  He was primarily responsible for an awful lot of UVA hoops — 7 by my count — especially considering the low number of total possessions there were in this game. And he was beaten a number of other times that thanks to either the help of his teammates or UVA just missing the shot, could’ve easily made that number even higher.

I was watching for other stuff off the ball. Denials. Help. Being disruptive. Very little of any of that.

Maybe K’s comments were a motivational ploy.  I certainly hope so, cuz if what he’s seeing is great defense from Andre in this game, maybe working up a thorough analysis of the upcoming ACC Badminton season is more my speed.

Another narrow win, though, is the bottom line.  At least this time it was a quality opponent.  But nobody is resting easy after this one.