Duke Basketball: Takeaways from Blue Devils humbling defeat to NC State

The Duke pick-and-roll defense still needs a lot of work

This point originally started as “Duke’s rim protection needs work” but upon further inspection, it would be unfair to place the blame on just the Duke big men as the perimeter defense has to be better over the last month or so of the season if Duke still wants to claim a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Duke’s guards were having trouble staying in front of NC State players one-on-one and things got even worse in pick-and-roll and off-ball actions. Duke perimeter defenders were getting screened off of the ball rather easily which helped NC State’s Markell Johnson get into an early groove that would end up lasting all game long.

Johnson scored a career-high 28 points, which included going 5-for-6 from 3-point range. One of those 3-point makes was a clean look after Duke’s Wendell Moore went under a screen. Another one was a ridiculous stepback 3-pointer from Johnson, made easier by the fact that he had Blue Devil big Matthew Hurt was switched onto him. Since Hurt is not exactly the most fleet of foot on defense, him guarding Johnson is an obvious mismatch yet there was no help provided him. This type of defensive effort from Duke is the same thing that allowed NC State’s Devon Daniels to rack up 25 points on 53.3% shooting.

Daniels attacked Duke’s defense with a lot of aggression and that aggression level increased as he realized that he could get easy baskets if he beat his initial defender.

Carey had 3 blocks on the evening but he and the rest of his Duke teammates ultimately could do little to slow down Daniels, Johnson or Wolfpack big man DJ Funderburk, who had 21 points and 9 rebounds. Duke is still one of the top teams in the nation but defensive efforts like Wednesday’s make them look more like a first-round exit than a Final Four contender.