WINSTON-SALEM – It was loud and it was feeling like Wake Forest was going to do the same thing it’s done for the last two seasons — knock off Duke at Joel Coliseum.

A zone defense was the wrench in those designs.

Wake Forest stumbled late in a 63-56 loss to No. 2 Duke on Saturday, unable to solve a 2-3 zone in crucial moments.

“When they went zone, kind of threw us off a little bit,” senior center Efton Reid III said. “But I mean, we needed to execute better down the stretch, from the zone plays and stuff.”

What was a 13-point halftime deficit turned into a six-point lead for the Deacons (15-5, 7-2 ACC). This defensive stalwart of a Deacons team put clamps on Duke’s high-powered offense to the point that the Blue Devils missed 18 of their first 19 shots in the second half.

Duke didn’t have a field goal in the second half for the first eight minutes. When Juke Harris made a bucket with 9:54 left, the Deacons’ lead was 45-39; an extended 23-4 run coming out of halftime.

After Cooper Flagg — who had a game-high 24 points on 8-for-16 shooting — made a jumper with 8:09 left, Duke went to a 2-3 zone. The Blue Devils stayed in it for six possessions, during which Wake’s only points came on a Harris jumper — he led the Deacons with 14 points — that rattled in with 6:56 left.

Otherwise, a Wake Forest team that had scored 23 points on its first 17 possessions of the second half was all of a sudden stymied.

Echoing Reid’s sentiment on execution against the zone was coach Steve Forbes’ take on the struggles:

“I just don’t think we executed very well, the looks that we called,” Forbes said. “It wasn’t like we were running motion against zone, we’ve got certain calls. I just don’t think we executed them very well.”

Duke (17-2, 9-0) wound up with a 14-2 run, making it a 53-47 lead with 3:53 left. The Deacons cut the deficit to four twice in the final minutes but that was as close as they got; dagger 3-pointers by Tyrese Proctor and Mason Gillis helped Duke keep the Deacons at arm’s length.

“We knew they’re a really good team … and even coming out of halftime, we knew in order to win this game, we were going to have to give them our best shot,” senior guard Hunter Sallis said.

Wake’s six-point second half lead marked the first time since Dec. 8 that Duke has trailed in a second half.

Sallis orchestrated a give-and-go with Reid on the final play of the first half and got a dunk, which put Sallis at five points. Duke’s defense was stifling to the point that Sallis didn’t have much of a chance to impact the game in the first half.

He had five points early in the second half, but only had two for the rest of the game.

Wake Forest is the best defensive team Duke has seen in a while and it showed in the first few minutes, when Duke had five early turnovers. The Blue Devils finished the first half with 10 giveaways; Duke entered the game with 10 or fewer turnovers in seven of its last eight games.

Offense, though, was hard to come by for Wake Forest in the first half.

The Deacons’ points per possession for the first 20 minutes was 0.67. For that opening stretch of the second half, when Wake Forest was on a 23-4 run, its points per possession was 1.35. The Deacons only scored 11 points on their last 17 possessions of the game, a clip of 0.65.

Duke’s points (63) were a season-low, as was its points per possession (0.93). The Blue Devils’ e-FG clip (44.7%) was the second-worst of the season.