Luke Kennard’s insane second half saves Duke, beats Wake Forest on final possession

Luke Kennard’s 30 second-half points included a game-winning three that capped off Duke’s comeback. (Getty)

For much of Saturday afternoon’s game between Duke and Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, a week full of drama and discussion about Duke’s problems looked set to end just as it began: with a loss. The Blue Devils were struggling in the same ways they had on Monday in a loss to NC State, and they trailed the Demon Deacons 42-32 at halftime. Narratives about Duke’s downfall were being readied.

Luke Kennard, however, was readying an alternate narrative.

The sophomore sharpshooter scored 30 exhilarating second-half points to at least temporarily halt the story of Duke’s demise. He completed the comeback with a dagger on Duke’s final possession that secured an 85-83 win:

Luke Kennard had 34 points for @DukeMBB vs Wake Forest..

His last ones were very important ????#MustSeeACC ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LQ3TFEFTXf
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) January 28, 2017

The Duke drama hit its peak on Thursday this week when a meeting at coach Mike Krzyzewski’s house was made public. Krzyzewski, still away from the sidelines as he recovers from back surgery, reportedly summoned his players on Tuesday night, banned them from their own locker room, and told them not to wear Duke gear.

The discipline made for great headlines. Unsurprisingly, it did not fix many of Duke’s on-court problems for much of Saturday afternoon. They were as prevalent as ever as the Jeff Capel-coached Blue Devils fell behind Wake Forest early, and trailed for much of the second half.

But Kennard took over the game coming out of halftime. With Duke’s big men plagued by foul trouble — Jayson Tatum fouled out with just under seven minutes to play — Kennard grasped the offense and made it go. He took 10 shots, and made every one of them. He hit five threes. He also chipped in four assists to go along with the 30 points, and led the Blue Devils to victory.

In the first half, Duke’s offense had sputtered, as it so often has over the past few weeks. It wasn’t slowed by lethargy or a lack of pace, but it was static. The ball didn’t move crisply. It did not flow from one side of the court to the other, did not force Wake Forest’s defense to shift, and therefore forced the Blue Devils into isolation offense and difficult shots. Duke had more turnovers (eight) than assists (seven) over the opening 20 minutes, and scored just 0.87 points per possession en route to a 10-point halftime deficit.

Duke did miss plenty of shots that it is capable of making. That was the case against NC State Monday, and was again on Saturday afternoon. But it also took plenty of shots that were sub-optimal. Even if many of those shots were makeable, the process by which they came about was incomplete. The Blue Devils often settled for contested looks. With so many weapons on the floor, the likes of Grayson Allen, Matt Jones and others seemed quick to launch shots for fear of getting left out of the offense if they passed on them.

In the second half, though, Luke Kennard went crazy — in a good way. The offense didn’t necessarily improve structurally, but it ran almost exclusively through Kennard, which was an improvement on its own. The Kennard-fueled attack scored 1.51 points per possession over the game’s final 20 minutes.

Kennard scored on drives and jumpshots, in isolations and off screens. The entire scope of his influence won’t show up on the stat sheet either. With a minute to go and Duke trailing by four, it was Kennard who initiated the offense, drove, and forced Wake’s defense to collapse and rotate. That rotation left Allen with an open three, which he drilled to bring the Blue Devils within one.

After Duke got a stop, Capel called timeout to draw up the final play for Kennard. The lefty came around a baseline screen, curled out to the right wing, and, in perfect rhythm, found the bottom of the net.

Kennard’s offensive outburst was, in a weird way, in part enabled by the foul trouble. Tatum, Amile Jefferson and Harry Giles had all picked up their fourth fouls less than eight minutes into the second half. Marques Bolden, the lone remaining frontcourt player in Duke’s normal rotation, couldn’t even get off the bench. Capel inserted Antonio Vrankovic into the game ahead of the McDonald’s All-American, who played just three minutes and did not score.

Duke was called for 30 fouls on the afternoon, and that in part contributed to the Blue Devils’ frustration. It simmered for much of the game, and boiled over in the second half. In particular, it boiled over in Allen in two different moments. Allen had been jawing with Wake’s Bryant Crawford, and after he fouled Crawford on a drive, he had to be restrained by his teammates as he yelled at the Wake Forest guard. Both players were assessed technical fouls.

Later in the half, after Allen missed a three, he pulled the arm of Crawford chasing the rebound. There was no wrongdoing by either player thereafter, but a scuffle ensued, and Allen was thrown into his own bench by Wake’s Brandon Childress:

Grayson Allen misses shot, grabs an arm, things get chippy af#DUKEvsWF pic.twitter.com/yGp22UBbR4

— Heavens! (@HeavensHawkeye) January 28, 2017

Allen had carried Duke’s struggling offense with 11 points in the first half, but ceded to Kennard in the second. He still hit the second-biggest shot of the game, though, the three on Duke’s penultimate possession.

The Blue Devils are now 16-5 overall and 4-4 in the ACC. They travel to Notre Dame on Monday.