When people look back on Duke’s win over Auburn, they may see it as a turning point in the season, the game the Blue Devils grew up on. And because of the way Auburn played, Duke had no choice if it wanted to win.

Auburn took a 13-2 lead and played so well that the Auburn fans – who, we must say, arrived well – almost drowned out the Duke fans.

Jon Scheyer called a timeout, steadied his team and soon Duke cut the lead to 15-10. After Johni Broome made two free throws, the game changed. And the reason the game changed was Isaiah Evans going on a JJ Redick-like heater.

First, he hit a three-pointer to cut the lead to 16-13. Then he hit another to cut Auburn’s lead to 22-18, and then he hit another. About half a minute later, he hit another and then another to give Duke a 26-24 lead. Then, with 2:37 left in the half, he hit another, putting Duke up 37-33.

He finally hit another goal with 58 minutes left, giving Duke a 43-36 lead that they would capitalize on until halftime.

He wasn’t the only one to score, but it’s been a while since Duke has seen an outburst like this. He finished the first half – and the game – with 18 points. The last guy to do this might have been Jason Williams. It was brilliant.

But it wasn’t until the second half that Duke managed to get everything right, and much of it – but not all – was on defense.

The Tigers were razor-sharp in the first half and continued to score a lot in the second half. However, Duke’s defense was dominant. Part of it was just the stifling defense that we saw at times, but part of it was mano a mano. Maliq Brown and Sion James in particular made life difficult for Auburn.

Jon Scheyer’s defense is good, but Brown and James, who made his first Duke start Wednesday night, took it to a new level. They didn’t give in to anyone.

Between Brown and Khaman Maluach, Broome scored just 8-18.

We haven’t really talked about Cooper Flagg, but it’s impossible to talk about this game without talking about his maturity.

By Wednesday, Flagg was willing to put off a lot, probably more than he should. He didn’t do that against Auburn.

Flagg asserted himself offensively. While he shot 0-for-4 on three-pointers, he was 7-for-18 overall, and without three-pointers, he was 50 percent from the floor. And he didn’t give up a bit on the track.

He was also invaluable in another way: Auburn defends the inbounds as well as anyone we’ve seen in a while. We didn’t count or anything, but Flagg was often the answer. A teammate passed him the ball on the first pass, or he was there to save someone. It may seem like a small thing, but Flagg consistently broke Auburn’s pressure. It was pretty awesome. He also led the team again with four assists and had 11 rebounds.

Tyrese Proctor was pretty solid too. Like Brown and James, he didn’t back down when Auburn came at him hard, and he had some crucial plays, not least a three-point play after things broke down and the shot clock almost expired. At that time, Auburn had cut Duke’s lead to 70-68. Proctor’s long three brought the lead back to five points.

In the end, Duke had to buy time, and the Blue Devils, who couldn’t do that against Kentucky or Kansas, did it very well. After Proctor’s three-pointer with 4:32 left in the game, Auburn scored from the line, but they didn’t make another field goal until the clock was down to :42.

During the game, Duke only had four turnovers, which is of course really good.

In the end, the two best things about this game for us were Duke’s maturity and toughness and Evan’s crazy first half. It made an impression on everyone. Jon Scheyer was enthusiastic: “It’s a great lesson for young players. It’s the combination of the fact that he’s mad (because he wants to play) and I want the guys to be mad and have something special about them and have the humility to just attack every day. And then there’s the third part: He had incredible courage in that game to do what he did. I don’t know if I’ve been a part of anything like that in my years.”

We will learn more about this later. There’s a lot to chew on here.

Notes – Caleb Foster, who moved to the bench, looked much more aggressive than before…It was great to watch Flagg go into takeover mode…a few times Auburn lost his composure…Maluach wasn’t a big factor in this game, but he has shown his immense potential a few times… Kon Knueppel hasn’t played that well lately, but he had a crucial shot down the stretch that was a real blast… well he’s good defensively played… afterwards Bruce Pearl said that Duke’s transition game was key and that the Blue Devils were “brilliant” in that aspect of the game… Flagg’s stats against Auburn: 22 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and 0 turnovers, three Steals and two blocks, 10 undeclared fouls, 7 of 18 FGs and 8 of 12 free throws.