DURHAM – Being the ACC’s only unbeaten team and playing the only team in the league without a win meant Duke had to put away Miami early.

No. 3 Duke got hot early and stayed that way for most of Tuesday night’s 89-54 thrashing of Miami at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“They’re such a talented team that, if you’re not careful, you can find yourself in a dogfight,” freshman Cooper Flagg said. “It was huge for us to come out hot early, come out with some force and kind of turn the water off on a bunch of guys that they had that, I mean, if they see the first couple go through, it’s going to be a lot different of a game, for sure.”

Instead of a dogfight, Duke (15-2, 7-0 ACC) rolled to its 11th straight win by jumping out to a 20-point lead with six minutes left in the first half. After that, the advantage dipped under 20 once, briefly and early in the second half.

After a timeout, Duke went to Flagg for a bucket and got a 3-pointer from Kon Knueppel — part of his season-high 25 points — to reassert its dominance.

Of both this game and of the ACC.

“We just kept it simple,” senior guard Sion James said. “We have guys who can make shots, so we found the guys who can make shots. Evidenced by us shooting, I think, over 50(%) from 3, having a season-high in assists and Kon Knueppel having a career game.”

Indeed, Duke made 17 of 32 3-pointers. This offensive clinic saw Duke put up an e-FG clip — it’s field goal percentage, just with more weight attached to made 3-pointers — of 68.5%, a season high.

It’s the sixth straight game with an e-FG percentage above 60 and 10th of the season for Duke, in 17 games. For comparison’s sake: Duke had 11 games with an e-FG clip above 60% last season, in 36 games.

Tuesday night’s display was simply surgical. Duke had 17 assists on 19 field goals in the first half and finished with 25 on 34 field goals. Knueppel’s 25 points came on 9-for-11 shooting; he made six of eight 3-pointers.

“I think we’ve found out how good we can be when we share it,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “And I think our guys fell in love with that and we continue to do it.”

Of Duke’s nine players who played at least 10 minutes, seven of them had multiple assists — led by Flagg’s six.

“I thought all our guys — like, even though it doesn’t translate to assists, Tyrese (Proctor) had two assists,” Scheyer continued. “I thought he had a lot more passes that led to something good. That’s something we try to emphasize, it’s not just the assists. It’s making the right basketball play.”

It was a 9-8 game through the first nine possessions of the game. Duke had one 3-pointer to that point, the first of Knueppel’s four in the first half.

Whatever clicked during the first media timeout was the perfect cataclysm for Duke’s shooting prowess.

Knueppel hit a 3-pointer. Mason Gillis drained one on the next possession. Miami interim coach Bill Courtney called a timeout.

Duke’s next two trips across halfcourt had the same result, just in a different order — Gillis 3-pointer, and then Knueppel 3-pointer.

Courtney called another timeout; it didn’t slow down Duke.

“A lot of unselfishness leads to a lot of open shots and I thought we did a great job of making the extra pass tonight,” Knueppel said.

When the dust of the first half had settled, Duke’s lead was 50-26. After scoring nine points in the first nine possessions, the Blue Devils scored 41 on their next 24 possessions — a clip of 1.71 points per possession.

In addition to that four-possession string of Knueppel and Gillis 3s, the Blue Devils had a five-possession stretch in which they scored every time — those were two lobs to Khaman Maluach, two layups by Knueppel, sandwiching Gillis’ third 3 of the first half.

Flagg had 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists — though, he also had a season-high six turnovers. Maluach had 12 points and a season-high 15 rebounds, marking his third double-double of the season (and second straight).

And Gillis’ four 3-pointers accounted for his season-high 12 points.

TIP-INS: Duke’s 11-game winning streak matches the program’s longest since the 2017-18 team started the season with that many wins. … Miami (4-13, 0-6) was led by Lynn Kidd’s 20-point game. The senior center had one rebound and was 10-for-17 from the field. … There were only 15 fouls called and nine free throws taken. The game only took one hour, 44 minutes to complete. … Caleb Foster, who had struggled of late, scored nine points and had four assists and four rebounds off Duke’s bench. He was scoreless in a combined 19 minutes in Duke’s last two games. ... In Duke's first game since Maliq Brown's knee injury, Maluach played 20 minutes and Patrick Ngongba II played 18. Ngongba had four points, five rebounds and an assist.