WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Chris Paul was a high school senior sitting in the stands when Wake Forest beat Duke in double overtime last year. He celebrated by grabbing a friend and rushing onto the court.
This year he was already there, right in the middle of a mob eager to honor him for helping the 15th-ranked Demon Deacons hand No. 3 Duke consecutive losses for the first time this season with a 90-84 victory on Wednesday night.
"Last year was something I will never forget," he said. "But it feels a whole lot better to be in a uniform for it. At first I kind of stepped aside when the fans came rushing out, then I jumped right into the party."
He should have.
After scoring 12 of his 23 points over the final 5:10, Paul was the honored guest.
In a testy game that came down to the final seconds, Paul -- a fearless freshman -- carried the Demon Deacons (16-6, 6-5 Atlantic Coast Conference).
He scored 19 points in the second half as Wake Forest overcame a 13-point deficit. He added eight assists and kept his teammates calm as Duke (21-3, 10-2) tried to pull it out.
But Paul capped his scoring with two free throws with 6.5 seconds left to seal the win.
"Your point guard is your quarterback. If the quarterback doesn't play well, you have no chance," coach Skip Prosser said. "He plays with great courage. I think his courage is contagious, and his teammates feed off that."
The loss didn't hurt the Blue Devils in the ACC standings since second-place North Carolina State lost to Clemson two hours earlier. North Carolina State beat then No. 1 Duke on Sunday.
And coach Mike Krzyzewski didn't even seem to be upset after this loss.
"Our kids played their hearts out," he said. "If we play that hard, we are going to be fine. We don't measure what we do by our record, we measure what we do by how hard we play."
Luol Deng led the Blue Devils with 20 points, Daniel Ewing scored 19, Shelden Williams had 18, and Chris Duhon 12.
J.J. Redick was held to two points and without a field goal for the first time in his career. He went 0-for-5, didn't attempt a 3-pointer and played just 21 minutes because of foul trouble.
Justin Gray had 17 points, and Eric Williams, who had his streak of 50 consecutive starts snapped three games ago when he was benched, ended a nearly six-week long slump. He had 16 points and 11 rebounds in a reserve role and gave Wake Forest a strong inside presence.
"Coach gave me an article of the last game that said, 'Shelden Williams had his way with Wake Forest's post players,'" Eric Williams said. "I didn't want that to happen again, so I taped that article in my locker and looked at it all the time."
After Paul scored on a fast-break layup that drew a foul, and Trent Strickland added a basket for an 85-77 Wake Forest lead, the game tightened up on Ewing's 3-pointer and a follow from Deng that made it 85-82 with 39 seconds to go.
Eric Williams made two free throws to put Wake back up by five, but Ewing's basket with 16 seconds left cut it to 87-84.
Strickland made one of two free throws, and after Duke turned it over on Paul's steal, he made both his free throws to seal the win.
The game got off to a rough and physical start with Redick shoving Paul in the face away from the basket, but only receiving an offensive foul for it. Although Paul partially provoked it by talking trash before the swat, he was stunned Redick wasn't called for a technical but didn't back down and responded with a long steely stare.
"I reached my hand out to Redick in the first game and it didn't go the way I planned," Paul said of his seven point performance in the Jan. 17 loss at Duke. "So coach told me to be fearless out there tonight and not take it."
It was the first of a flurry of stare-downs, shoves, tie-ups and fouls.
Prosser was called for a technical for his reaction on a call against the Deacons. Duke's Nick Horvath was hit with a technical for swatting at Strickland after the two locked up and Strickland taunted him with a wide-eyed glare.
That prompted Krzyzewski to scream at the referees to "Control the game!" while admonishing the Blue Devils to compose themselves.
After a brief conference with the coaches, the referees tried to restore order with quick whistles. They called 19 personal fouls in the first half and 38 for the game.
"We were just trying to play mind games," Duhon said. "One team tried to punk the other, and the other team wasn't going to let them punk them. It was just mind games to see if anyone was going to be scared off and if there was any way we could gain any type of advantage."
AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service
Copyright 2004, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
