|
Overview:
The inside game lives!
Duke defeated Michigan
104-97 on 12/11 in Ann Arbor. Michigan was 6-0, having
defeated Georgia Tech, a tough Kent team and Detroit by narrow
margins. Crisler Arena is known for its lack of boisterous fan
support, but it always is wild for its confrontations with Duke.
Head coach Brian Ellerbe also created a student fan organization known as "Maize
Rage" and installed them right next to the court to provide a
more intimidating homecourt advantage. In other words, he borrowed
an idea straight from Cameron. Ellerbe was very unhappy with
the way in which Duke destroyed his team in Cameron last year, and
was using it to motivate his players. There's no question that
they came out fired up and never quit, but their youth and lack of
size was the big difference. Without any upperclass
leadership, they went through several periods where Duke ran off a
bunch of points.
Michigan had a spectacular recruiting
class this year, bringing in top talents like Lavell Blanchard,
Jamal Crawford, Kevin Gaines and sharpshooter Gavin Groninger.
Blanchard and Gaines were both Duke targets, with Duke aggressively
going after Blanchard after Corey Maggette left. Crawford made
the biggest impact, going for a game-high 27 points. Gaines
had 23 but only shot 6-19. Blanchard had 17 and hit the boards
hard. He only got going in the second half, at one point
exploding for 5 straight points.
The only thing that Michigan lacked was
a dominant big man, and this is something that Duke exploited early
and often. Duke shot only 14 times from three point range, and
only 6 times in the second half. Duke went to their big men as
much as possible and used dribble penetration rather extensively.
The Devils also crashed the boards hard. This was made
possible in part because there were very few long rebounds to be had
off missed threes.
Michigan actually led for most of the
first sixteen minutes. They took advantage of Jason Williams'
absence due to fouls and Carrawell's missed shots to score in
transition and hit a bunch of threes. They hit three
consecutive threes to stake out a 35-28 lead, their largest of the
game. After Jason Williams went out with his third foul, Duke
went to work. Horvath got fouled and hit 2 shots after picking
up a rebound. Carrawell penetrated and hit James for a three.
Boozer got a basket on a putback. Dunleavy got fouled after a
rebound, putting Duke up 37-36. The Wolverines collapsed as
the half ended and were lucky to only be down by 6. The Devils
looked great offensively, as Boozer found a cutting James and
Dunleavy stole a pass for a breakaway jam. James missed a
three as the half ended, but Duke was in control, 48-42 .
Michigan came out blazing in the second
half and tied the game at 52. Duke quickly struck with Carrawell
finally scoring and a transition dunk by Battier. Michigan
crept back to 59-58 but Duke went on a 10-0 run led by Williams.
He made an amazing bounce pass to Boozer for a dunk, hit a three and
got a steal and breakaway. The teams traded baskets for
awhile, with Duke maintaining a 10-12 point lead, until Michigan got
close again at 82-79 with seven minutes left. This time, it
was the Carlos Boozer show. He hit four straight foul shots,
and then had three consecutive dunks on beautiful Williams feeds.
Duke was cruising once again at 95-87 with around two minutes left,
but Michigan had another run in them, scoring on three point plays
in transition and playing great defense. With just a minute
left, they had pulled to within 95-93.
Once again, it was the frosh Boozer that made the play.
He took a pass inside, turned around and found Battier down low for
an easy layup. Battier was intentionally fouled on the next
possession, and it was just a matter of making foul shots for Duke.
Duke had won another game in a hostile arena, their third such game
out of four.
As always, there were things to work on.
Duke was slow to cover three point shooters, again having problems
fighting through picks. At times, they allowed too much
penetration. But the fact of the matter is that Michigan's
young guards were excellent. They were quick and aggressive as
well as unselfish. This Michigan squad has very good chemistry
despite their youth and I see them making some noise this year.
Their inexperience and lack of size will hurt them against some
teams, but their sheer offensive firepower will engineer some
upsets. When they get Brandon Smith back, their inside game
will improve a bit, but until then, this will be a major achilles
heel. As for Duke, they passed their big stretch with flying
colors, and will be rewarded by three straight tune-ups.
** Negatives:
1. Three point shooting. Shane and Mike D just couldn't hit,
and they had some good shots. To Duke's enormous credit, they
didn't depend on the three and only took 14 attempts.
2. Three point defense. Duke gave up way
too many uncontested threes, and in particular had problems picking
up shooters in transition.
3. Ball pressure. Duke didn't cause many problems for
Michigan's young guards, but this was helped by the fact that UM
plays a three guard lineup and has excellent ballhandlers.
Williams' two quick fouls didn't help matters any.
** Positives:
1.
Rebounding. Duke was bigger than Michigan, but it was more
than that. Duke attacked the offensive boards, especially in the
first half, and this resulted in many putbacks that helped keep
Michigan from building a lead. Of the 6 Duke players who had more
than twenty minutes, all 6 had at least 5 rebounds. Duke used
both quickness and strength to dominate here.
2. Penetration. Williams and C'well broke down Michigan's
defense at will in the second half, drawing the defense towards them
and opening up all sorts of opportunities down low. Even
Boozer did this, forcing his man up, which led to a huge basket when
Carlos passed to Battier.
3. Transition offense. Devastating at times. Duke scored
on nearly every opportunity whenever they had numbers.
Player-by-player analysis:
** Boozer: If this is how Carlos
plays when recovering from the flu, then by all means send him out
in the rain barefoot! Duke made it very clear that they would
be attacking Michigan's weak inside game, as Battier and Boozer got
some shot attempts down low right away. Carlos didn't have a
huge impact right away, even though he did have 9 points at the
half. Most of this was on free throws, mixed in with some
points off offensive rebounds. He did control the boards,
nabbing 7 in the first half alone. In the second half, and in
particular from about the eight minute to two minute marks, he was
absolutely dominant. He scored 14 points on excellent feeds,
including three
straight from Williams, had a huge block in transition, and
delivered an incredible pass down low to Battier spurred Duke on to
victory. Duke had an obvious advantage and exploited it again
and again. What was especially encouraging was the way he was
finishing: two handed dunks, not his little layups that he was
missing earlier in the year. This means that his leaping
ability is coming back bit by bit, which is obviously helping his
aggressiveness. He played 32 minutes, the most he's played all
year. He wasn't playing against great post men, but Asselin
and Vignier are experienced and Asselin in particular had a pretty
good year in '99. Moreover, Carlos got the bulk of the
minutes, with Michigan rotating two men in against him. This was
also the first game where Carlos played good defense, picking up 3
blocks and intimidating others with his size. Carlos has had a
rep for not working as hard as he should, but he was fierce out
there today and he's made some steady gains. As long as he
continues to keep working hard, he'll be fine, and moreover, Duke's
balance will improve.
** Battier: Shane had an
excellent all-around game. First and foremost, he took up a
lot of the offensive slack, taking 13 shots. He provided a lot
of the offense in the early going, scoring on a turnaround jumper in
the lane, a post-up and a baseline jumper. He also played some
suffocating defense, drawing 2 charges and holding Michigan star
Lavell Blanchard to 2 points. In the second half, he made sure
to get himself open, and capitalized on great passes from Williams,
Dunleavy and Boozer. The latter pass came when Michigan had
pulled to within 2 with just a minute left and really took the wind
out of the Wolverines' sails. He also got fouled intentionally
on a good feed from Williams and nailed both shots. While
Blanchard came back in a big way by shooting over Battier, Shane
still had some great defensive plays. In addition to two blocks, he
also tapped a loose ball into the backcourt for a Williams
breakaway, hustling all the way. Shane played the way the rest
of the upperclassmen did: mature, gritty, hard-nosed. And he
was easily able to ignore the constant booing from the Michigan
crowd, something he wasn't ready for two years ago.
** Carrawell:
As was widely reported, Chris was very sick all week, only getting
to practice briefly on Friday. Then he had to pick up the
slack at point guard when Williams went out, in addition to
rebounding and defending a variety of top-notch guards.
Something had to give, and it was his shooting touch. His jumper was really off, clanking
shots that he routinely makes, from all ranges. He did make
one significant play in the first half: a drive into the lane and
dish to an open James for three. With Williams back in the
second half, his game opened up a bit. He found Williams open
underneath for an easy layup, and then hit a three off a Williams
pass that broke a 52-all tie--the last tie of the game. He
also had a big drive for a layup that helped stop Michigan's
momentum, and hit some foul shots down the stretch. The fact
that he managed to play 31 minutes was amazing, because he was
huffing and puffing the whole time. I expect his touch to
return in Duke's next game.
** James: Nate seems to be
developing a knack for discerning when his team is in trouble and
needs someone to pick them up offensively. He swooped in for a
nice little scoop shot when Duke was trying to establish itself
early in the game. Then he cleaned up some Duke misses, the
first drawing a foul after he laid it in and the second a
spectacular dunk after a Battier miss. He also had two big buckets
as Duke came back from a deficit: a momentum- changing three from
the corner (his favorite spot) that drew Duke to within 2 and a
great cut on a pass from Boozer that put Duke up for good at 41-40.
Michigan would tie it up again later but never lead. In the
second half, he hit a three and then alertly picked up a loose ball
to put Duke up by 12 with eleven minutes left. The Wolverines
would come close later, but they had to exhaust a lot of energy in
order to do so. Nate was simply solid once again--nothing
flashy, but he got the job done when he was needed.
** Williams: It must be
understood that both the Duke fans and coaches are asking a lot of
young Jason. Lead the team, set up everyone else, penetrate,
apply ball pressure, score and don't turn the ball over.
Little by little, he's becoming more adept at all of these things.
He came back from early foul trouble to play nearly foul-free in the
second half, without limiting his aggressiveness. He played a
part in Duke's first 8 scores of the second half, either on crisp
passes or generating his own offense. And when the game was on
the line, he attacked the defense and found his new favorite target,
Carlos Boozer, down low for three easy baskets. He had 8
assists but could have had more, since a couple of nice entry passes
led to fouls and one was dropped. Amazingly, all of his
assists were made in the second half. And his 17 points came
despite the fact that he only hit a couple of jumpers, but still had
a good percentage (50%). He scored off steals, free throws and
by cutting to the basket. Both of his threes were big--the
first pulled Duke to within 2 at 26-24, and the second put Duke up 4
at 62-58, at a time when the Wolverines were on a mini-run.
His two flashiest plays came in transition: an alert pass to Battier
for a transition dunk, and an amazing, thread-the-needle full court
bounce pass to Boozer for a dunk. While his quick hands helped
set up some easy baskets, his foul trouble limited his ability to
pressure the ball, which helped Gaines and Crawford absolutely go
off. Lastly, he hit two foul shots with seconds left that put
Duke up 8 and pretty much killed Michigan's hopes. And that
came in a one-and-one, so there was a fair amount of pressure.
He did then miss two in a row, but the game was pretty much over at
that point. About the only other things he did wrong were a
horrible, fancy pass in the lane that got picked off and an
ill-advised quick three when Duke was trying to run some time off
the clock.
** Dunleavy: Mike D is finding
more and more ways to make himself useful. His shooting touch
basically abandoned him in this game, so he compensated by playing
alert defense and attacking the boards. He entered the game
just two minutes into the first half when Williams picked up his
second foul, and had a shaky start, turning the ball over twice.
But he had a great block from behind on a Michigan break, and this
seemed to fire him up. First, he rebounded a Battier miss, put
it back and got fouled. He later scored on a nice drive and
lean-in. He took over the game towards the end of the half,
snagging another offensive rebound and getting hacked and later
doing the same and laying it in, and had a steal and breakaway dunk
for 11 points at the half. He didn't do as much in the second
half, partially because Williams was just a rock out there, but he
did manage 3 more boards and a nice pass to Battier. All in
all, a good game despite not being on from the floor.
** Horvath: Boozer's huge game
limited Nick's minutes a bit, but he still found ways to contribute.
He had a nice turnaround jumper on the baseline with a man on him,
and calmly sank two foul shots while chants of "Ugly white
guy" rang out in Crisler. Most impressively, he swatted
away a sure jumper on the break. He played his usual
surprisingly tough game, and looks like he's gained a little weight,
mostly in muscle. Another good sign: he makes excellent
decisions for such a young player. Look for him to get big
minutes in Duke's next three games as K tries to find out what other
things he can do.
** Sanders: Played a minute and picked
up a foul down low. Coach K mentioned after the game that
Casey was starting to come on in practice. He also said that
he had been concentrating on developing James, Boozer and Dunleavy,
saying that "you have to develop 4, 5 and 6 before you can
worry about 7, 8 and 9." In other words, he was trying to
establish a set rotation before concentrating on those who are
lagging behind. But he also said that now that Boozer and
Dunleavy are solid, he will turn his attention towards Horvath and
Sanders over the break. Look for both to get big minutes in
Duke's three pre-ACC holiday games.
** Buckner: Played a minute
towards the end of the first half and pushed the
ball up well on one possession. This game featured a Duke
worst-case scenario, with Jason Williams being unavailable for
extended minutes. Buckner came
in and didn't embarrass himself, a good sign.
Next Game:
Sunday, November 19th vs NC A&T in Cameron
at 1:00pm. This game will not be televised. The Aggies
recently lost to Durham's own NC Central squad, a Div II club.
A&T did play Duke reasonably tough last year, but this is a
post-exam tuneup.
Reported by Rob Clough, tmc@duke.edu
|