Blue Devils blow past La Salle

DURHAM – The final score masks how close Duke and La Salle were in the first half, and Kyle Filipowski’s final stat line masks whatever funk he was going through for the first 20 minutes of Tuesday night’s game.

Tyrese Proctor’s complete performance didn’t need masking, as the sophomore scored a career-high 22 points in Duke’s 95-66 win over La Salle at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“My shot started falling down early and I think I just realized I could get downhill more and I just tried to use that to my advantage,” said Proctor, who was 7-for-11 from the field, had seven rebounds and four assists.

The ninth-ranked Blue Devils also got a 16-point, 10-rebound performance from freshman Sean Stewart, in only 18 minutes on the court.

Fourteen of Proctor’s 22 points came in the first half, including one 3-minute stretch in which he scored all 10 of Duke’s points. His last two points came with about seven minutes left, putting Duke (4-1) up 73-50 and helping the Blue Devils coast for the last stretch of this game.

It’s Proctor’s third straight game without a turnover, as Duke’s sophomore point guard has been on a roll since the loss to Arizona.

Speaking of rolls …

“Tyrese was terrific tonight,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “It was his best game he’s played this year, maybe period. … I remember watching Tyrese in high school and thinking, ‘This guy’s a wizard in pick-and-roll.’

“He’s shown flashes of it, because he can really do it. Tonight was just, almost every time he was in it, we got a wide-open shot. It makes your offense very simple, just put him in pick-and-roll.”

Filipowski was the beneficiary of some of those plays in the second half, when he scored 14 of his 17 points. He was more active in the first 99 seconds of the second half than he was in 12 minutes of the first half.

At halftime, the sophomore center had three points, three rebounds, one turnover and two fouls. He was relegated to the bench at the 6:11 mark when he picked up his second foul.

Duke’s first three second-half possessions were:

- Jeremy Roach alley-oop to Filipowski for a layup.

- Filipowski pick-and-pop 3-pointer, assisted by Proctor.

- Filipowski finish through contact on feed by Roach, and-1.

In between the first and second buckets, Filipowski was saddled with his third foul. Scheyer opted to leave him in; Filipowski never picked up the fourth foul. In addition to scoring in double figures for the fifth straight game to open the season, he had a season-high four assists and five rebounds.

“Yeah, I’m not sure. You know, he just — he didn’t have that same look that he normally has,” Scheyer said of Filipowski in the first half. “You know, he’s coming off of a game — look, his ankle is swollen and he’s playing through that. And he’s got some stuff going on.”

Filipowski was briefly available in Duke’s locker room after the game, but left to receive additional treatment on his swollen ankle.

Scheyer lauded his All-American’s ability to play through the foul situation — while also divulging some game-plan element.

“We’re keeping him in there. Let it be known,” Scheyer said with a chuckle. “The maturity to play through the foul trouble, the rough first half, I’m really proud of him. I thought it was a big-time performance because he did not have his best stuff. Which is going to happen.”

Duke never trailed but didn’t pull away until the second half.

The Blue Devils’ biggest lead of the first half was 10, which it hit multiple times over the last eight minutes of the half without being able to stretch it further.

Defensive stops in the first several minutes of the second half were the reason Duke was able to pull away.

“It wasn’t even that the ball moved, it was that we were getting stops,” Roach said. “When we got stops, we got out in transition and got easy buckets.”

TIP-INS: Mike Krzyzewski was in attendance, the third game he’s come to since retiring and second this season (Arizona being the other). Krzyzewski and La Salle coach Fran Dunphy were teammates on the All-Army team in 1971 and ’72. Dunphy needs one more win to reach 600 in his 32-year coaching career. … Freshman TJ Power made the first three 3s of his career, all coming in the last three minutes. … Christian Reeves was unavailable for the second straight game, though the sophomore 7-footer did not appear to be wearing a walking boot on his right ankle (as was the case Friday night). … Duke is 18-1 when Mark Mitchell scores in double figures — he had 12 points, eight of which came in the first half. … This is the third straight game that Duke’s leading scorer has set a career-high. That was freshman Caleb Foster (18) against Michigan State, and sophomores Mitchell (20) against Bucknell and Proctor (22) against La Salle.