DURHAM, N.C. — It did not look likely — or, frankly, possible.
So in other words, a Cooper Flagg special.
And while most things that Duke’s superstar freshman does on a basketball court can reasonably be described as special, this? Well, see for yourself:
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯💀🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️🙆♂️ @Cooper_Flagg pic.twitter.com/K0cqvzuWtY
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) January 8, 2025
It’s hard to believe arguably the best dunk of this college season started out so ordinarily. Pitt made a lazy post entry pass early in the second half of Duke’s eventual 76-47 blowout win Tuesday. Flagg easily read and intercepted it, which naturally led to a fast break. But as he passed midcourt — where Duke coach Jon Scheyer stood, still contesting an out-of-bounds play from seconds earlier — the fans inside Cameron Indoor Stadium did something unexpected: They got quiet.
In anticipation.
Scheyer threw his hands in the air as Flagg sprinted past him, wanting a foul call on Pitt guard Jaland Lowe for his contact, but Flagg’s target lock was already trained on the rim. By the time the 6-foot-9 freshman got fully around Lowe, the only things standing between him and the hoop were 10 feet of space — and poor Guillermo Diaz Graham. Graham meekly threw his body in the path to “contest” Flagg as he elevated from just outside the paint …
And Flagg went up and through the 7-foot center for a one-handed dunk that will live in Duke highlight lore.
“It reminded me of a Zion (Williamson) kind of play,” Scheyer said. “We’ve had a few guys through the years make a couple plays that just spark everybody in the building, and that was one of those moments.”
Asked to rate his dunk 1-10 postgame, Flagg could only smirk, his muted reaction not dissimilar to his post-jam staredown.
“I haven’t seen it quite enough. I’ve only seen the one angle so far,” Flagg said. “Right now, I’m gonna put it at an 8.5. But that might change a little bit when I see different angles.”
Flagg’s dunk — his latest highlight-reel moment from a freshman campaign full of them — will be the flashy headline following Tuesday night, and not wrongly so. But consider the rest of the game outside of that 10-second sequence. Consider how Duke — which entered the game allowing just 59.2 points per game, the lowest total in program history — held an offense averaging 84.1 points per game to almost half its season average. Pitt is now the seventh of Duke’s 15 opponents to score a season-low versus the Blue Devils.
Consider how Lowe and Ish Leggett, Pitt’s two best players, who average a combined 35.2 points, could muster only 12 points on 5-of-27 shooting. Consider how Scheyer called timeout with just under eight minutes to play and Duke did not allow a single point thereafter, finishing on an 18-0 run.
That isn’t just suffocating. It’s borderline unbeatable.
“They’re elite defensively,” said Pitt coach Jeff Capel.
After Tuesday’s victory, Duke regained its spot as KenPom’s top-ranked defense in terms of adjusted efficiency. By any discernible metric, or the almighty eye test, the Blue Devils are amongst the best three or so defenses in America. Their length — Duke does not have a single rotation player under 6-feet-5 — makes it difficult for teams to shoot over them or rebound against them or generally to run offense like they normally would. Size-wise, it is an NBA lineup; Scheyer could conceivably play three guys 6-9 or taller — Flagg, plus centers Khaman Maluach and Maliq Brown — together and it not be an issue.
But while the collection of talent itself is impressive, what stands out more (and what doomed Pitt, and Auburn weeks ago, and most Duke foes) is how those pieces fit together: seamlessly. Even with three freshman starters, Duke can switch as crisply as any team in the nation — and as of Tuesday, it appears willing to do so with Maluach, the 7-foot-2 shot-blocking savant. That’s a new defensive wrinkle in Scheyer’s toolbox, and one that should terrify Duke’s opponents.
That’s because most of this season, Duke has alternated defensive coverages depending on whether it had Maluach or Brown on the court. Scheyer even alluded to that dichotomy after Duke’s win over Arizona; the way he used Maluach and Brown differently was like a pitcher changing between multiple pitches. “The versatility of these two guys,” Scheyer said in November, “you have a fastball and a splinker.” With Brown, an All-ACC defender at Syracuse last season, Scheyer always felt comfortable switching, because of Brown’s penchant for deflections and foot speed.
But with Maluach, he was content to keep the big man parked in the lane in drop coverage, so as to deter anything at the rim. Look how deep Maluach was playing as recently as Saturday, when Duke beat SMU:
https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/08001514/4-2.mp4
Now compare that to Tuesday, on one of the game’s opening possessions. Yes, that’s a 7-foot-2 center defending a dynamo of a 6-foot-3 guard on the perimeter:
https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/08001504/1-5.mp4
“Khaman, he’s a little bit of a unicorn, right? Because you want to keep him at the rim to protect, but we’ve known from the beginning, he can move his feet, too,” Scheyer said. “Even if you get by him as a guard, even if you get a step, you still have a 7-2 guy that can move and has timing that’s coming to chase after your shot.”
Maluach was already one of the better rim protectors in the country, not just for his sheer blocks, but for how he disincentivized opponents from entering the paint at all. But if he’s now roaming the perimeter and frequently able to cover ground in space? Look out. That tactic was what unlocked Duke’s defense two seasons ago, when Scheyer similarly unshackled a previous 7-footer: Dereck Lively II, now the Dallas Mavericks’ starting center. (Fittingly, Lively’s first game switching everything also came against Pitt.) Those Blue Devils responded by ripping off 10 straight victories, winning the ACC tournament championship and emerging as a top-five defense over the last month of the season.
If Scheyer’s current team was already the nation’s top-ranked defense, and now it adds this?
“Our defense has been good from the outset,” Scheyer said, “but we haven’t felt like we’ve hit our ceiling.”
Tuesday was a glimpse of what that might look like: downright frightening. Just ask Pitt.
Then factor in Flagg, and his sensational dunk, and his season-long success on top of that. It’s easy to understand why people are buying stock in Scheyer’s Blue Devils. Flagg, who finished Tuesday night with a game-best 19 points and 10 rebounds, is still getting better, too. On top of leading Duke in points, rebounds, assists and blocks, guess how he’s been from 3 lately? He’s made 6 of 11 over Duke’s past four contests, seemingly rectifying the lone “hole” he had in his game.
None of that is nearly as sexy as his second-half poster, of course. But while that dunk may be what the basketball-watching masses most remember from Tuesday, it’s the defensive tweak Duke showed that figures to be much more consequential.
(Photo of Cooper Flagg: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)