Film Room: How Duke's defense powered road win at Arizona

Versatile, fluid and nasty: Duke executes its game plan in a dominant defensive performance

It’s one thing to win on the road, which is exactly what Duke did Friday night in Tucson, 69-55, while allowing a measly 0.81 points per possession. It’s another thing to be so dominant on the defensive side of the floor that it may highlight some larger, more structural concerns with the home team. Namely, can Arizona’s half-court offense — with Caleb Love as its one true high-volume 3-point bomber — be efficient when they aren’t able to mash on the offensive glass and get to the line?

That’s not Duke’s concern now, though. The Blue Devils were solid across all phases of the game, save for some live-ball turnover issues. Regardless, Duke won three of the famed Four Factors — effective shooting, turnover rate and offensive rebound rate — and essentially played Arizona to a draw in terms of free throw attempt rate (13.1% to 13.2%).

So, let’s focus on the defense. What did Duke do right in the desert?

“No rebounds, no rings”

Pat Riley never told a lie, and this basketball axiom proved pivotal for Duke at Arizona. Keeping the Wildcats off the offensive glass required a group effort. Six of the eight Blue Devils who played recorded three or more defensive rebounds — not including 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach, who finished the game with one defensive board.

Arizona entered the weekend with the No. 1 offensive rebound rate in the country. It was a bit of small-sample theatre, perhaps, but the Wildcats rebounded 50 percent of their own missed shots through the first three games of the season. Going up against Duke, Arizona rebounded only six offensive boards, which translated to an offensive rebound rate of 16.7.

Scheme Execution: Love Lockdown

As it as has for most of the season, Duke mixed up its pick-and-roll defensive coverages with both centers: Maluach and Maliq Brown. During the majority of this game, though, Duke followed a set pattern against the three Arizona guards that tend to handle the rock and use the most ball screens: KJ Lewis, Jaden Bradley and old friend Caleb Love.

Lewis and Bradley are both big-time players, but neither is an efficient high-volume jump shooter. According to Bart Torvik’s shot data, Lewis shot 23.1 percent on long 2s last season (3-of-13 2PA), while Bradley hit a more respectable 41.2 percent of his long 2s (28-of-68 2PA). Duke, for the most part, defended these two guards with drop coverage — having Maluach and Brown defend the screen below the level. This approach allows the defense to close down the rim, guard the action 2-on-2, stay home on spot-up shooters and encourage the offense to take tough 2-pointers in the midrange area.

Often, this worked in partnership with the on-ball guard, who used the drop space to go under the screen and stay with the ball handler. Look at Sion James go, man.

A defense can’t take everything off the table for the offense. Something will always be on the menu. With drop coverage, that can mean off-dribble attempts in the midrange, especially when the on-ball defender goes over the screen. Given the space, Bradley burned them for a couple of pull-up jumpers.

Even if the outcome is suboptimal (allowing 2 points), Duke can live with these types of shots from an expected value standpoint. Over the course of a 40-minute game, it’s better to encourage the speedy Bradley to take these types of shots — instead of putting pressure of the rim, which creates layups, free throws and kick-out 3-pointers.

So far this season, Duke’s defense has allowed opponents to shoot just 29.5 percent on midrange attempts, per CBB Analytics.

Brown is smaller than Maluach, but he’s incredibly nimble and has quick hands, especially for a center. Duke has mostly guarded ball screens with Brown this season by having him hedge, play up at the level or switch out on opposing guards. This allows Duke to take advantage of Brown’s abilities in space, while Cooper Flagg lurks around the back side of the play and helps put out fires around the rim.

Against Lewis and Bradley, though, Brown played a lot of drop-like coverages as the on-ball guard went under the screen — an effort to meet the Arizona guards on the other side of the screen, thus cluttering the lane even further against drives.

Bradley comes off this double ball screen action with James and Tyrese Proctor switching the first exchange and Brown below the level — sinking further into the paint. Proctor goes under the screen, unconcerned with Bradley’s pull-up jumper, and meets him at the other side. Motiejus Krivas ducks in, but as soon as he catches the entry pass, Brown and Flagg go to work with their hands and force a turnover.

From earlier in the first half: Lewis dribbles off a screen from Krivas. Brown drops, James (a monster point-of-attack defender) goes under and meets Lewis on the other side of the screen. James forces Lewis to spin back and there’s Brown (3.6 steals per 100 possessions for his career) waiting to knife his hands in and force a tie-up.

Love, however, got a different treatment. As its primary coverage vs. Love, Duke hedged ball screens, with the center jumping out at the veteran guard 20+ feet from the rim.

Look how high Brown comes out to hedge this screen and how far that pushes Love away from the rim. Duke keeps the ball in front and Flagg contests/alters a rushed corner 3-point attempt from Trey Townsend.

If this approach felt targeted, well, it was: the Blue Devils weren’t going to let Love get clean off-dribble looks from deep. Love is streaky as hell, but he has nearly 300 3-pointers to his name in college and plenty of those have come from ball-screen action. If he gets rolling with those pull-up triples, it changes the dimension of the game.

Over the years, Duke — whether it was Scheyer or Coach K — has tried different coverages against Love. Here, Mark Williams is in drop and Wendell Moore Jr. goes under the Armando Bacot screen, which results in a pull-up 3-ball for Love.

During the 2023 matchups, Tyrese Proctor and Dereck Lively were excellent guarding Love in pick-and-roll actions. It certainly doesn’t hurt when you have a ridiculous defensive prospect like Lively — who can move in space laterally against guards, execute multiple coverages and protect the rim like a maniac.

Maluach isn’t out as high as Brown on this ball screen for Love, but he’s essentially still hedging this at/above the level, which forces another pass out from Love. Once again, Flagg flies around on the back side and forces a turnover — with Townsend dribbling it off his foot.

This type of scheme versatility, and the ability to execute multiple coverages against different veteran guard creators, is rather impressive. (Duke looked far more comfortable handling Arizona’s ball screen actions than Kentucky’s 5-out offense, which features a lot of tricky off-ball motion.) It’s easier to commit two defenders to the ball in pick-and-roll when Flagg is behind the play to clean stuff up, too.

Love finished with a remarkably inefficient line: eight points on 13 field goal attempts, three turnovers and only 1-of-9 shooting (11.1 3P%) from beyond the arc, with the one make coming on a spot-up attempt from an offensive rebound kick-out.

What goes around…

Much ink was spilled last season as Duke rewired its offense on the fly as teams aggressively sagged off of forward Mark Mitchell — a trend that started when Arizona came into Cameron Indoor last November. Backup center Ryan Young received the same treatment.

This development continued throughout the season, including Arkansas, which dialed the approach up to Level 10 when Duke traveled to Fayetteville three weeks later. Opposing defenses assigned their best rim protector to Mitchell, planted that defender in the paint, dared Mitchell to shoot when he had the ball in the corner and used that defender to create havoc at the rim.

Ultimately, the Blue Devils made it work and still assembled one of the best offenses in the country, thanks primarily to the gravity of Jared McCain and the high-post playmaking of Kyle Filipowski. However, the offense never quite hit 5-out nirvana, nor its lofty preseason expectations.

I doubt payback was on Jon Scheyer’s mind as Duke assembled its game plan for Arizona. That said, it didn’t go unnoticed how the Blue Devils handled lineups that featured two big men for the Wildcats: sagging Maluach well off the non-shooting frontcourt player — in this case, Tobe Awaka (0 3PA in 73 career games) — and having him muck things up around the basket.

On this baseline out-of-bounds play, Maluach never leaves the paint as Awaka palms the ball in the short corner, which allows Duke’s center to help on a cutter and still be in position to contest when Awaka drives.

According to CBB Analytics, opponents are shooting just 53.3 percent at this rim against Duke this season, which ranks in the 89th percentile nationally.

From the next trip down the floor, Awaka tries to initiate handoff action from atop the key — with Maluach chilling a step outside the restricted area. Caleb Foster does an excellent job getting on the top side of Love with Maluach sunk in the paint. Eventually, this turns into a handoff for Anthony Dell’Orso as he drives into a maze of defenders. Flagg gets over the screen in rearview pursuit, Maluach is at the rim waiting and Mason Gillis crashes down to help, too.

Dell’Orso is forced to pass the ball out, but having 7-footer Henri Veesaar try to drive on James as the shot clock dwindles goes (predictably) poorly. All three of Duke’s substitutes in this game — the veterans: James, Brown and Gillis — each recorded at least one steal. The Blue Devils have now forced a turnover on 20.6 percent of their defensive possessions this season, according to KenPom.

This possession also highlights the value of adding veteran defenders like Gillis and James (and Brown, obviously) in the portal. These are two 6-foot-6, 220-pound defenders with hundreds of college games under their built. They’re switchy and in the right places. To start this defensive possession, Gillis and James switch — with James taking Veesaar and Gillis drawing Love. That’s two beefy wing defenders easily passing off different assignments: a 7-foot center and a 6-foot-4 pull-shooter. Gillis then executes another off-ball switch with Foster, who is then in position to deny the handoff action to Love.

Gillis is nearly beaten backdoor by Lewis, but with Maluach already at the rim, the cut opportunity is greatly diminished. This buys Gillis time as he recovers to Lewis and is able to also help on the drive.

No-Man’s Land Zone

I charted Duke with a handful of zone defense possessions during exhibition wins over Lincoln and Arizona State. However, here’s a little bit of gamesmanship from Scheyer and Duke: the team’s first possession of zone defense in the regular season, which comes after Tommy Lloyd called a timeout to set something up on the final half-court possession before halftime.

The Blue Devils start with Foster and James applying ball pressure — before falling back into a 2-3 zone setup. Arizona is a veteran team with good guards; the Wildcats pivot and snap into their zone concepts, with Townsend flashing to the nail. Arizona tries to post up the larger Krivas, but that’s where Brown’s reflexes and hand speed come into play, once again.

As Krivas tries to take his first dribble — before the ball even hits the ball — Brown pokes his hand in and knocks the ball out.

In the 101 minutes with Brown on the floor this season, Duke has allowed a minuscule 77.4 points per 100 possessions and an effective shooting rate of 36.6 percent, according to CBB Analytics.

Looking Ahead: Kansas

The Blue Devils have plenty of positives to take from this win; however, things don’t get any easier as Duke remains in the Mountain West: undefeated Kansas (5-0) with a rest advantage awaits next Tuesday.

It’ll be interesting to how Duke handles the assignment with Kansas. The Jayhawks have some stretch in their frontcourt, but it’s distributed in a different fashion. Their top three post players — Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams and Flory Bidunga — have combined for six 3-point attempts this season. Adams has never made a 3-pointer in 111 career games, but he’s really good at attacking space with a good handle, plus he possesses good shooting touch in the midrange and some passing chops.

Dickinson blends efficient high-post passing with a powerful low-box game. He's never been a high-volume 3-point shooter, but he’s good from long distance when he has time and space to line up a shot. He’s not really the kind of frontcourt hub you can play way off of without paying a price.

The fifth-year center is also a tank with his back to the basket. As versatile as Duke is defensively, the Blue Devils can’t realistically consider cross-matching at the 4 and 5, playing Flagg on Dickinson while Maluach sinks into the paint vs. Adams. When Bidunga is in the game, though, Duke could try and dabble with these concepts on a few possessions.

Kansas has several big transfer wings that can really shoot the ball, too: AJ Storr, Rylan Griffen and Zeke Mayo. Storr is a nice playmaker on the wing as well. Bill Self’s spread pick-and-roll concepts are very good at changing sides of the floor — operating with pace and rhythm. Kansas will go through multiple options and flip sides of the court before launching downhill. Regardless of who is guarding them, KU’s offense demands that defenses be disciplined and prepared to handle multiple efforts per possession.

Kansas flips sides of the floor here vs. UNC, and with Ven-Allen Lubin in drop coverage: Mayo dribbles off for an open pull-up 3.

That said, Duke could get creative with how it wants to defend Dajuan Harris, the primary ball handler for Kansas. Harris has turned himself into a good shooter, but over 70 percent of his 3-pointers the last three seasons have been assisted. He’s more of a driver in the ball-screen offense.

Will Duke throw drop coverage at Harris and try to disrupt his drives? James looms as a potential swing piece in this regard. Or, will the Blue Devils guard things more aggressively and try to get the ball out of Harris’ hands, while also risking getting into rotation against this arsenal of big wing shooters?