DURHAM – Eight minutes into the season opener, it looked like Duke was going to turn Monday night’s game against Maine into the same type of annihilation we saw in the preseason games.

Not so fast — at least, not in the first half.

“It was the first time we’ve really been hit back hard,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “I think that was great for us to experience.”

Coinciding with what was great about the experience was Duke’s response to being hit.

The Blue Devils ran away in the second half with a 96-62 win over the visiting Black Bears at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“I mean yeah, we’ve definitely gotta do better about keeping the pedal to the metal right there, we let them come back a little bit,” said sophomore guard Caleb Foster, one of six Blue Devils in double-figure scoring with 11 points.

“That goes to our defense, we’ve gotta clean a lot of things up,” he added. “But we’re going to be really good once we get those things cleaned up and get those things more consistent throughout the whole game.”

Duke’s scoring was paced by freshmen, with Kon Knueppel scoring 22 on 8-for-14 shooting and Cooper Flagg filling in the stat sheet — expect that often — with 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals. Maine was whistled for 19 fouls; Flagg drew eight of them.

“I thought it was great for (Knueppel) to see the ball go in early,” Scheyer said of Knueppel. “He’s a multi-dimensional player, though. The scoring was great but I thought his defense was really good.”

Duke spurted ahead 26-9 in the first half, using a 14-0 run to get there. At that point, all systems were clicking.

The Blue Devils went cold for the rest of the first half and Maine made a game of this. Duke’s points per possession in getting out to that 26-9 lead was 1.73; for the last 12 minutes of the first half, it was 0.82.

That, plus Maine going on a 9-0 run after coach Chris Markwood’s timeout, is how Duke couldn’t pull away in the first half and it was a 44-33 game at halftime.

“We were rolling. I feel like when we get in a rhythm, the ball is moving side to side,” junior guard Tyrese Proctor said. “I think it stuck a little bit too much at the end of the first half. That’s why we started breaking down a little bit to 1-on-1 too much.

“Once we got back into a rhythm, we go on runs quick. I think we showed that last week and last game, and I think we showed that this game, too.”

The personnel has changed but one thing remains a constant for this Duke program: Its defense is going to dictate how well the Blue Devils play on the other end.

Those are obviously related in a few ways, one being that Duke went from six fast-break points in the first half to 12 of them in the second half.

Otherwise, rebounding matters: Maine outrebounded Duke 18-16 in the first half and Duke held a 24-9 advantage in that category in the second half.

Duke dialed up the defensive intensity in the second half, was more aggressive in passing lanes and forcing Maine to catch passes moving away from where its players wanted to be.

“It’s one thing that we’re just going to have to working on throughout the year, to keep our level where it needs to be at,” Mason Gillis said of Duke’s defense. “Communicating, we have to be on the same page.

“We let them score too much in the first half, so we wanted to hold them in the second half and (Scheyer) definitely said something about that. But it’s always an emphasis. It wasn’t just a second-half emphasis. That’s one of our standards, we want to play with defense first on our minds and keep teams from scoring.”

Breaking things down into points-per-possession: Maine had nine points on its first 14 possessions (0.64), then scored 24 on its last 22 possessions (1.09) of the first half. The Black Bears started the second half with 13 points on their first 16 possessions (0.81), and then went nearly 10 minutes without making a field goal.

“Just, you have to guard the ball,” Scheyer said. “If you guard the ball, you’re not in rotations and it puts less pressure on the rest of your defense, I think that was a big part of it.”

The same quick-strike ability that was evident in the exhibitions was on display here early.

Duke’s lead was 12-9 after Maine’s first 3-pointer; in 2 minutes, 9 seconds, Duke scored the equivalent of two touchdowns. Knueppel, who already scored on the first possession of the game, poured in nine points in about 1½ minutes, and dished to Gillis for a corner-3 that capped the Blue Devils’ 14-0 run.

Duke never trailed in the game and led for all but 32 seconds.

TIP-INS: Keeping track of the Flagg family, Cooper’s parents Kelly and Ralph sat behind Duke’s bench; Cooper’s twin brother, Ace, sat behind Maine’s bench. He committed to the Black Bears last week. … Luol Deng was back in the building, Scheyer said, the first time since his one season as a Blue Devil (2003-04) that he was at Duke for a game. Deng is a mentor to freshman center Khaman Maluach, who had six points, six rebounds and three blocks. … Isaiah Evans played in the first half and had two fouls; Darren Harris didn’t play until the second half and scored six points, making the only 3-pointer he shot.