The Duke basketball team has typically shined with its defense this season but its offense was clicking on all cylinders on Saturday afternoon against Stanford.
In its first matchup as conference opponents, the No. 3 Blue Devils score the most points it has all season against the Cardinal winning 106-70.
Tyrese Proctor, who has been playing the best basketball of his career in the last week, led the charge for Duke (22-3, 14-1 ACC) in the first half by scoring 17 points that led to a 15-point advantage. The Blue Devils connected on 58.1-percent of its shots in the opening stanza while knocking down 7-of-16 attempts from 3-point range.
The 18 points in the first half from Stanford (16-10, 8-7 ACC) star center Maxime Raynaud could not threaten Jon Scheyer’s team as they took it to another level in the second half, shooting 66.7-percent (22-of-33) from the field and 7-of-13 from distance in the 57-point half.
Its defense even rose to the occasion, holding Raynaud scoreless after halftime.
Proctor led the way with 23 points, but five different Duke players reached double figures including Caleb Foster who scored 10 points despite only playing the final 6:12 of the game.
Cooper Flagg chipped in 19 points for the winning team while one of the most impressive performances of the day came from Khaman Maluach, who had the assignment against the 7-foot-2 Raynaud, and finished with 17 points with his only missed field goal being a 3-pointer.
Sion James ended with 14 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the free throw line.
The Blue Devils will have a short turnaround for its next game on Monday night (8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN) against Virginia (13-12, 6-8 ACC) inside John Paul Jones Arena. It will be Duke’s only conference game for the next week with a non-conference matchup against Illinois looming next weekend.