CLEMSON, S.C. – There was no defending Duke’s flaw in its first loss in 74 days because, well, it was defense that failed the Blue Devils.

Go figure.

Clemson pounded Duke from inside the 3-point arc and ended the Blue Devils’ 16-game winning streak with a 77-71 win at Littlejohn Coliseum on Saturday night.

The Tigers (19-5, 11-2 ACC) put up as efficient an offensive game as we’ve seen against Duke this season. Clemson made 30 of 51 shots (58.8%), becoming the first team to shoot over 50% against the Blue Devils; Clemson was 26-for-41 (63.4%) from inside the arc, again the best a team has shot against Duke and a jarring clip when considering Duke entered the game with the best 2-point defense rate in the country (41.7%).

“I think we were a little undisciplined. Our game plan, I didn’t think we stuck to it quite as well as we should have,” freshman Cooper Flagg said of Duke’s defense. “I thought tracking down rebounds, guards coming in … me, Khaman (Maluach) and Maliq (Brown) really boxing out and securing rebounds, we just, we weren’t really there tonight.

“We didn’t do our jobs.”

Duke (20-3, 12-1) lost the rebounding margin 36-23, the third straight game being outrebounded. Clemson’s 11 offensive rebounds led to 15 second-chance points. The Tigers are a good 3-point shooting team; they only made four, and took 10 of them.

Clemson had 40 points in the paint — stop if you’ve heard this before — and that’s a season-high against Duke this season.

“I thought in the first half, they hit some tough ones,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “I didn’t think we had enough resistance overall in the second half.”

So, all of that about what went wrong for Duke defensively, the Blue Devils still took a one-point lead three times in the last five minutes. The last of those was the last time Duke scored, Flagg stroking a 3-pointer with just under a minute left.

The 6-9, 205-pound generational talent didn’t look like himself for the first 33 minutes of this game and had four points to that point. Flagg scored 14 in the last 6:05, draining three 3s and willing the Blue Devils along.

Chase Hunter hit a contested mid-range shot with 38 seconds left, what proved to be the final lead change. Duke followed that with a disjointed offensive possession that had Sion James miss an off-balance shot.

After Viktor Lakhin made one of two free throws with 21 seconds left, Flagg drove right with a chance to tie the game — or at least draw a foul.

He slipped on a wet spot and traveled instead.

“There were wet spots all over the court. It was so humid in there,” Flagg said. “There probably was a little wet spot, just unfortunate. At the end of the day, you’ve just gotta make a play.”

Hunter made four free throws in the last 15 seconds to put the game on ice and deal Duke its first ACC loss of the season.

“I mean, we haven’t lost since November or December or whatever it is,” said Tyrese Proctor, who scored a season-high 23 points. “Obviously a bad feeling but straight into the film room and we have such a great locker room, everyone is going to be … just look at themselves in the mirror.”

Clemson went on a 12-0 run to take its first lead of the game. It started when Duke’s lead was five, around the 14-minute mark.

The first time this game was tied, Ian Schieffelin buried a deep 3 from the top of the key as the shot clock was expiring. On Clemson’s next possession, Hunter got downhill on a drive for a layup and the Tigers’ first lead.

“I thought they got in our paint too much and I thought we could’ve been a little better in our gaps,” Proctor said. “But the game just came down to rebounding and some of the loose ball plays, free-throw box outs.”

Duke’s lead at halftime was 41-35.

There wasn’t the greatest of feelings with that, though, as Clemson made 15 of 22 shots (68.2%). What stopped the Tigers in the first half were 10 turnovers, leading to 18 of Duke’s points.

The Tigers only committed two turnovers in the second half and Duke’s points-off-turnovers number finished at 18.

“Second half, we played about as well as we can play,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. “(We made) the plays you have to make.”

TIP-INS: No player for Duke had more than five rebounds — a number Flagg and Maluach both finished with. Clemson was led by Schieffelin’s 10 rebounds, Hunter had seven, and Clemson was credited with seven team rebounds (typically, loose balls knocked out of bounds are team rebounds). … Kon Knueppel scored 11 of his 14 points in the first half. His three points in the second half were a 3-pointer that put the Blue Devils ahead 49-44, before Clemson’s pivotal 12-0 run. Knueppel was also called for a flagrant-one foul in the first half for tripping Jaeden Zackery after the two were tangled up in the backcourt. … Lakhin scored Clemson’s first nine points of the second half and wound up with 22 points, one shy of his season-high. … Former Duke big man Christian Reeves had five points; the only game he's had more this season was seven in a 28-point win against Florida A&M. ... Clemson has won five straight games against AP top-five teams. This was the second of those wins this season, with the Tigers knocking off Kentucky in the ACC-SEC Challenge (one of the ACC’s two wins, the other being Duke’s win against Auburn).