DURHAM – Duke’s latest close game was played with coach Mike Krzyzewski absent for the second half, but with enough clutch plays made for the Blue Devils to pull out a 76-74 win over visiting Wake Forest on Tuesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

First things first: Krzyzewski remained in the building, he just didn’t return to the court for the second half. Jon Scheyer, Duke’s coach-in-waiting, said Krzyzewski was feeling better after the game.

“Coach is doing better. He got some rest,” Scheyer said. “What he needs is rest. … He’s doing better, he’s in a much better place. I think especially after the fact that we got that win.”

That in and of itself was a challenge, with Duke (22-4, 12-3 ACC) having a 19-point second-half lead whittled away to the point that Wake Forest (20-7, 10-6) tied the game with two free throws by Alondes Williams with 17.5 seconds left.

Duke’s ensuing possession saw Paolo Banchero drive down the right side of the lane, put up a shot that bounced off the backboard and rim, and was cleaned up on a put-back dunk by Mark Williams.

“I was just in the right place, right time. It bounced off the rim, I got it, dunked it,” said Williams.

That simple to maintain a slim lead atop the ACC standings, though it hasn’t always been that easy for a Duke team that’s now 3-4 in games decided by five points or less.

“We know we’ve been in a lot of situations where we haven’t been successful closing out close games,” Williams said. “Tonight was just – even in the huddle, we knew we were going to have to win.”

The game-winning dunk was ruled to have happened with four-tenths of a second remaining, and Wake Forest’s Damari Monsanto got off an 80-foot heave that bounced off the backboard and parts of the rim before caroming off.

Replay appeared to show that if the shot had gone in, it wouldn’t have counted – though, since it didn’t go in, there’s no official word on that.

“I don’t know what it is, it’s like teams come in here and they always get something crazy. Like, every time,” Banchero said. “But no, he threw it and at first I thought it was way short because it was flat. But it just started going right to the basket and it literally was in there and just rolled out like, wow.

“My face, I was like – I couldn’t believe it. Like, why is that even that close?”

Williams and Wendell Moore Jr. scored 16 points apiece to lead Duke, with Williams grabbing 10 rebounds and Moore recording six rebounds and five assists. Banchero scored all 13 of his points in the second half, while AJ Griffin scored all 12 of his in the first half.

Jeremy Roach, who was replaced in the starting lineup by Trevor Keels, came off the bench for 10 points.

In what can be characterized as a strange season at Cameron – we’ve seen The Citadel’s Duggar Baucom collapse during a game, we’ve seen players from Army and Georgia Tech in verbal spats with Krzyzewski – the build toward Krzyzewski’s mid-game exit seemed to start long before halftime.

“I kind of noticed it early in the game,” Moore said of Krzyzewski not feeling well. “I looked at Coach Scheyer and made sure he was OK, he said, ‘Coach is fine.’ But I just noticed a couple of times – I mean, he just wasn’t himself out there.”

It was noticeable that something was amiss with Krzyzewski when Moore completed a three-point play about nine minutes before halftime – during the free throw, every Duke assistant coach was checking on the 75-year-old coach, and Scheyer grabbed a cup of water from a manager to give to Krzyzewski.

Krzyzewski continued coaching the Blue Devils through the end of the first half and even seemed to be more vocal in the closing minutes. But when Duke took the floor after halftime, he wasn’t with the team.

Official word came at the first media timeout of the second half that Krzyzewski was “not feeling well” and that he would not return to the bench for the rest of the night.

It means that Krzyzewski coached one half out of two games against Wake Forest this season; he didn’t make the trip to Winston-Salem in January because of a non-COVID illness.