Brice Johnson's big night not enough in 74-73 loss to Duke

The ball belonged in his hands. You’d think it had to.

For the entirety of Wednesday’s first half and the opening minutes of the second, Brice Johnson turned the North Carolina-Duke game into his own exhibition.

A double-double in the first half? He accomplished it effortlessly. Seemingly unstoppable? He appeared so.

But as the clock wound down, the magic wore off.

After electrifying the Smith Center crowd for much of the night, Johnson attempted two shots in the final 17 minutes of play, negating his 29-point, 19-rebound performance in a 74-73 loss to the Blue Devils.

“We’ve just got to make a better effort to look in there. Brice has got to work a little bit harder to get the ball, and we’ve got to take care of the ball ...” said senior guard Marcus Paige. “Brice, he can’t do it all. It seems like he about did it all tonight, but someone has got to help him.”

It didn’t look like Johnson needed help in the first half.

Three minutes passed before Johnson made his first basket. Untouched and seemingly unseen, the 6-foot-10 forward swooped in for an offensive rebound and a putback dunk.

Thus began the Brice Johnson brigade.

Duke (20-6, 9-4 ACC) couldn’t match the forward’s height or his ferocity, as Johnson punished the Blue Devils on the glass and in the paint. The Tar Heels (21-5, 10-3 ACC) entered halftime with a 46-42 lead, thanks in large part to Johnson’s 18 points and 11 rebounds.

“I was just being myself — just being aggressive, going to the glass and scoring the way I know how to score,” he said. “There was a size advantage with me in there, and I just used it to my advantage.”

That edge carried over into the second half, as Johnson scored six straight points within the first three minutes to push UNC’s lead to seven points.

But it wasn’t enough.

Despite drawing a fourth foul on Duke center Marshall Plumlee with 14:06 left, the Tar Heels failed to get the ball inside to Johnson as the Blue Devils made their comeback.

“I just tried to do what I could,” said Johnson of attacking Plumlee. “I was trying to go at him and get him out of there. But at the same time, he did back off a few times and was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to stay in this game. I’m going to help my team win.’”

And with less than a minute left, Duke was poised to do exactly that.

After a pair of Grayson Allen free throws gave the Blue Devils a 74-73 lead, UNC failed to score on back-to-back offensive possessions. They failed to get Brice Johnson the ball.

“I told the kids I should have called a timeout,” Coach Roy Williams said about the final play, a Joel Berry miss. “We didn’t get as good of a shot as I thought we would get.”

In a rivalry game where historic performances are the norm, Johnson finished with the second-most points and rebounds in his career.

But as the buzzer sounded and the Tar Heels were defeated, he fell to the ground — his hands over his face, knowing what he accomplished still wasn’t enough.

“I’m going to be thinking about this one for a while,” he said. “It’s definitely tough.”

@patjames24

sports@dailytarheel.com