• Richard Lees/ Creative Commons

“No,” intoned Coach K, when asked if he knew why Duke lacked energy for the first 20 minutes, and let the silence sit for five long seconds.

“I don’t have an explanation,” explained Ryan Kelly.

“Weak,” said Austin Rivers.

“Some of basketball, a lot of it, just comes from effort,” offered Miami head coach Jim Larranaga.

Down 28-42 after a miserable half, Duke made an effort. After symbolically coming off the bench again, Seth Curry, in one of his best performances as a Blue Devil, might have thought he was back at Liberty University, slashing to the basket and hitting threes, pull-up jumpers and drives on his way to a team-high 22 points in 39 minutes, with four assists, three steals and no turnovers on the side. With the unusually ineffective Mason on the bench, Miles Plumlee poked balls away from the dangerous Mr. Johnson. Rivers rebounded, early and often, coast-to-coasting twice. Quinn Cook pounded his chest and asserted himself on defense, including a forced air-ball from Malcolm Grant after a Miami timeout, with 3:02 left in the game and Duke down by one point, whereupon the home crowd stood up as one body and filled Cameron Indoor Stadium with the feeling of a destiny and a game about to be won.

Everyone—Duke, Miami, the fans, the media—had been waiting for this moment all night, perhaps all season, and for some of the youngest in the crowd, maybe their whole lives. Because the crowd seemed back, after weeks of scolding in the media for lack of volume and verve. Body painted students lined the rows, shaking off some early-game complaints about sore hands and throats unused to weaponized cheering. Miami’s huddle faced some semblance of a shout-down during timeouts. A cameraman nodded in satisfaction. Chants of “please don’t eat me” sailed out towards fat players, and refs were urged to seek alternative professions and consult specialty doctors. Cameron seemed loud again, and Miami had never won here, and it was going to stay that way.

After all, Duke wins these games, at home, despite difficult makes by Johnson over the outstretched hands of Miles, despite a miss at the line by Rivers that might have put Duke up by one, despite miserable first halves. Duke had to win after Miami couldn’t get a shot off and the game went into overtime, with their best three-point shooter fouled out, and the Blue Devils guards about to drive with total ferocity and earn six free throws in the extra period, two by Curry (89 percent), two by Cook (81 percent), two by Rivers (68 percent)?

Zero for six. Lose by four. “You can’t cheat the game,” Krzyzewski zenned. He was pissed off after this one, like a dad that raised 31 children and somehow ended up with a 32nd who didn’t look like any of the others, or him, or the mom, and wrecked the car again and again despite getting straight As and remembering everyone’s birthday. “You got to play that way all the time, and then I think free throws go in at the end. At least most often than not.”

He went on for a little over three minutes, praising St. John's and lamenting his own team, saying that "we did enough to win" but that it "almost makes me sick to say that." Then he said, "That's the story. You can ask your questions... Maybe some question will open up some little thing that I have not looked at, but believe me, I do this all the time."

Well, we did ask questions, of course, and the revealing thing was that Krzyzewski wound up holding forth for what may have been his longest postgame session of the season so far. There was in fact plenty to say, and some of Krzyzewski's bitterest comments—made palatable by the occasional acerbic quip—shed new light on Duke basketball in his three-decade tenure.

Well, before we get to that, perhaps it's worth choosing this moment to remind ourselves, in the words of Austin Rivers, "We did win. It's crazy, because the locker room setting is like we lost." Ah, yes: Duke beat St. John's this afternoon at Cameron, 83-76. The Blue Devils put together a superb first half on both offense and defense. They had a 16-point lead at the break—had they converted a couple of easy layups, it could have been 20—and it swelled to 22 just three minutes into the second half.

St. John's started five freshmen and was piloted by assistant coach Mike Dunlap (head coach Steve Lavin has been receiving treatment for prostate cancer). Nonetheless, the Red Storm made a game of it thanks to its two best players, national top-40 prospects Moe Harkless and D'Angelo Harrison, who scored 33 of their team's 47 second-half points. St. John's narrowed the Duke lead to seven points with a 21-9 run; but the Blue Devils went to the free throw line 16 times over the game's final eight minutes, making 14 of the attempts, and salted away their 18th win against just three losses. Duke is tied for the lead in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings and is one of the top 10 teams in the country.

So why the long faces?

• Photo by Christopher Beck
• Austin Rivers, in action earlier this season

CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM/ DURHAM—Spend any amount of time around a coach/manager, and you soon come to recognize their catchphrases. Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo, whom I've probably interviewed 220 times, has "day to day," and "he battled" and a few others. To reiterate the watchword is to press a sort of reset button, to get back to basics, to simplify: the coach is reminding himself (and his listeners) of his fundamental approach, his attitude, his way of working and perceiving. When I say this, I am me. Mantras.

Among Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski's mantras is: "It's what we do." I think he's said this three or four times this season in his postgame comments, almost interrupting himself to get it in there at certain moments. The "it" in that phrase can refer to a number of things, depending on the context. Last night, Krzyzewski summoned the phrase while talking about a sequence right near the end of the first half of Duke's 91-73 trouncing of Wake Forest.

The actual events and their consequences were relatively unimportant in the overall picture of the game. Duke was trying for a 2-for-1 with about a minute left to play in the first half, and the thing you need to know about this is that Andre Dawkins had, to that point, made six consecutive three-pointers over a span of about seven minutes, making them from all over the floor, swishing them, bouncing them around the rim, shrugging MJ-style in insouciant glee, and scoring 18 straight Duke points—eighteen!—that basically ended the game before it was half over. Duke had a double-digit lead for the final 26 minutes of the game.

If you are looking for your quick-and-dirty storyline from last night's game, that's it: Dawkins, six straight three-balls, 21 first-half points. He didn't score a single point in the second half, but he didn't need to: Wake was so intent on shutting him down that they forgot about the other guys, and three of those other guys—Seth Curry (who had an excellent game), Ryan Kelly and Austin Rivers—scored at will. Those three plus Dawkins scored 69 of Duke's first 73 points. The Plumli were a non-factor, basically, and for a change they didn't need to be. Duke has a chance to tie its record for consecutive home wins (46) with its next game this Saturday, at home against Florida State.

But back to this 2-for-1 situation: So Tyler Thornton, who had eight assists last night (and it seemed like all of them were on passes to Dawkins), with Duke up 43-30 and about 53 seconds to play, apparently ignored whatever set he'd been told to run and made another quick pass to Dawkins. Dawkins wasn't really set for his shot, but because he was feeling it, he hoisted yet another three-pointer—his 11th of the half—and missed badly. An airball, in fact, if I recall. The Demon Deacons grabbed the ball and ran out on the fast break, and Travis McKie schooled Dawkins on his way to a handsome layup that brought Wake Forest to within a respectable 11 points—and now it was Wake Forest that had the 2-for-1, because there were still 44 seconds on the clock.

So Krzyzewski called time out. And he was not happy. He started to scream at his players. Presumably he used his f-mantra a number of times. He was asked later about this moment: was he mad at Dawkins for the hasty shot?

"No," he answered immediately, "I got on our point guard." And after explaining the whole 2-for-1 plan, he added "Those are things I do—it's what we do."

But what was "it"?