Three takeaways from No. 14 Duke basketball’s 86-66 ACC win over Syracuse Tuesday night

Poor 3-point shooting and a foul trouble among its big men left No. 14 Duke vulnerable for a half against ACC foe Syracuse on Tuesday night.

But once the 3-pointers finally starting falling, the Blue Devils were unstoppable.

Unable to make a 3-pointer in the first half, Duke hit all eight of its 3-point attempts in the second half, with red-hot Jared McCain drilling four of them, as the Blue Devils turned their two-point halftime edge into an 86-66 win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“It started on defense and then turned into easy offense,” McCain said. “I know I got a few transition threes and then it turned into everybody getting buckets.”

A freshman guard, McCain scored 18 points to continue his strong play of late for Duke (10-3, 1-1 ACC). In the Blue Devils’ current five-game winning streak, he’s averaging 19.4 points per game.

Photos: Duke basketball defeats Syracuse

Mark Mitchell’s play allowed Duke to survive its first-half struggles. The 6-9 sophomore scored 18 of his career-best 21 points in the first half.

After two early fouls kept Duke’s Kyle Filipowski on the bench for much of the first half, the preseason ACC player of the year scored each of his 12 points after halftime.

Jeremy Roach added 17 points and Tyrese Proctor 14 for Duke, which shot 75% (18 of 24) in the second half to finish at 52.5% for the game.

Syracuse (10-4, 1-2) turned the ball over 17 times while making just 4 of 16 3-pointers (25%). The Orange shot 43.6% overall.

Forward Maliq Brown led Syracuse with 26 points, while guard Judah Mintz tallied 18.

Here are three takeaways:

A hat-tip to Boeheim?

Duke offered a twist in the second half against Syracuse, mixing in a 2-3 zone defense to slow down the Orange’s interior scoring.

The irony was that it helped Duke beat Syracuse. Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, who retired from Syracuse last March, was a renowned practitioner of the 2-3 zone defense. This season, with Adrian Autry coaching the Orange, they had only played zone on 13% of their defensive possessions prior to Tuesday night.

“Who would have ever thought?” Scheyer said with a laugh. “We only played it a couple of possessions, trying to protect our paint. There’s things we practice and we’ve had in our pocket that we haven’t gone to in games, the zone being one of them. It’s important to have different looks. I thought we did a really good job for never playing it.”

Duke had played man-to-man defense 97.8% of the time this season, according to Synergy Sports. But the Blue Devils forced Syracuse into eight second-half turnovers and the Orange hit only 2 of 8 3-pointers as Duke pulled away.

Surviving foul trouble

Duke had Filipowski for only seven minutes of the first half as he picked up his second foul at the 9:29 mark and sat until halftime. Reserve forwards Ryan Young (three fouls) and Sean Stewart (two fouls) were also in first-half foul trouble.

Scheyer had to resort to using the 6-9 Mitchell at the 5 position with 6-9 freshman TJ Power at small forward. Mitchell played terrific basketball and Power, though missing all three of his shots and going scoreless, did have three rebounds and no turnovers in his 7:24 of first-half play.

Other times, 6-1 guard Jaylen Blakes manned a forward position

Together, they allowed Duke to lead 35-33 at halftime despite being outrebounded 25-17 in the game’s first 20 minutes.

“We had a lineup out there we’ve never had before,” Scheyer said. “I mean, in practice we’ve never had before. We had so much foul trouble. You’re trying to survive there a little bit, just stringing some stops together.”

The Orange won the rebounding battle for the game, 31-30, but Duke had the edge after halftime.

3-pointer streak jeopardized

The last time Duke failed to make a 3-pointer in game was Dec. 30, 1989. Entering Tuesday night’s game with Syracuse, the Blue Devils had made at least one in 1,201 consecutive games. Only UNLV (1,203) had a longer such streak.

The Blue Devils missed all nine of their 3-point attempts Tuesday in the first half against the Orange.

But McCain ended any growing drama and extended the streak to 1,202 games when he drilled a 3-pointer just 22 seconds into the second half.

Duke didn’t miss another one, the first time in program history the Blue Devils have made all their 3-pointers in the second half after not making a 3-pointer in the first half. The eight 3-pointers also set a program record for most 3-point attempts without a miss in the second half of a game.

McCain didn’t learn of Duke’s 34-year-long streak, and thus his role in keeping it going, until after the game.

“No clue,” he said before adding, with hint of wonderment, “Oh my God. That’s crazy.”