In the battle of the bigs, the same image repeated itself into prevalence.

Rakeem Christmas makes a move in the post. He gets a shot off. It rolls off whichever side of the rim.

And the prospective national player of the year defiantly chins the ball up and looks to outlet while Christmas retreats to the other end of the court — where Jahlil Okafor continued to make his case for such an honor.

“He’ll be the first pick in the draft,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said of Okafor, Duke’s freshman phenom. “He’s got the best footwork of any big guy I’ve seen. They did a great job of finding him against the zone and he’s a great finisher.”

Okafor led Duke’s charge to 40 points in the paint, which tied the most the Orange has allowed there in the last four seasons, while Christmas’ ineffectiveness diminished SU’s (16-9, 7-5 Atlantic Coast) chances of knocking off the No. 4 Blue Devils (22-3, 9-3) in a 80-72 loss Saturday evening in the Carrier Dome.

After an unimpressive first half for both big men, the Duke center responded in the second — and Christmas didn’t. The SU senior finished the game 5-for-17 from the floor, his subpar 11 points paling in comparison to Okafor’s 23-point, 13-rebound authority over the inside.

“It was a physical game down there,” Christmas said. “I missed a lot of shots I normally make in the game.”

Five of those misses accompanied a pair of turnovers that filled Christmas’ stat line before a made field goal did. He drove from the top of the key down the left lane and finished with his left hand to finally connect from the field with 2:47 left in the first half.

Because of Michael Gbinije’s hot hand, SU was ahead by 10 at that point.

But the next time Christmas hit a shot, Duke had pulled ahead, 49-43, and Okafor was two dunks and two layups into his 16-point second half.

“I think Jahlil did a great job keeping his body on him, making him play both ends, making him be tired,” Duke forward Amile Jefferson said. “Rak is a really great player and he plays a ton of minutes for them. Jahlil did an amazing job on both ends.”

Offensively, the 6-foot-11, 270-pound force was as advertised Saturday evening — displaying the same impressive footwork and touch from the paint that SU fans had, to that point, only seen on highlight reels.

He tallied eight of Duke’s first 13 points of the second half — spinning away from a double team to score off the glass and running the floor for an emphatic two-handed transition slam — as the Blue Devils quickly deleted SU’s lead, which was once as much as 11 points.

On the other end, Okafor helped neutralize Christmas, who clanked his first four shots of the second half before faking out Duke backup center Marshall Plumlee for a layup from the block.

But after that make, Christmas didn’t attempt a shot for another eight minutes of game time — and he missed that one, too.

With four fouls to his name and 39 seconds left on the clock, Okafor backed off in the post and let Christmas soar to the rim for a two-handed dunk.

But by then, it was too late.

Neither Christmas, Boeheim nor Okafor said the SU big man’s shots were particularly difficult ones — but regardless, they didn’t fall, and Christmas came up short in his biggest challenge of the season.

“Watching those two play against each other, that’s big-time basketball,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Jah’s defense was, that’s the most he’s been challenged defensively, and I thought he responded really well. And then he finished everything in the second half because we had better movement.

“He played a terrific game.”

Published on February 14, 2015 at 11:28 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb