DURHAM — As Duke freshman Mason Plumlee took off toward the basket for a dunk late in the first half of Thursday night's showdown against Georgia Tech, Duke junior Kyle Singler had to take himself out of the game.

Away from the ball, Singler banged his already injured right wrist against an opposing player's knee.

"I just got it banged up a little bit," Singler said. "It's fine."

Clearly.

Singler got the wrist checked out and got back into the game for the final possession of the half, one that ended with him draining a 3-pointer from the right corner with three seconds left to open up a 12-point lead for Duke and open up the floodgates for Singler.

Singler went on to score 20 of his career-high 30 points in the second half, the large majority coming from behind the 3-point line, to lead the 10th-ranked Blue Devils to an 86-67 victory over the 21st-ranked Yellow Jackets at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Singler hit 8 of 10 from 3-point range, matching the highest percentage in school history on 10 or more attempts while falling just short of the school record of nine 3s shared by Shane Battier and J.J. Redick.

Singler had totaled nine 3-pointers over his previous six games while missing 22 over that span -- previously par for the course during a season in which Singler was hitting 33 percent from long range entering Thursday.

"I think it's the first game all year that I've shot the ball well from the floor," Singler said. "I just got into a rhythm, and I took open shots."

Teammate Jon Scheyer, who added 21 points, set Singler up for the 3 to end the half with a baseline drive and delivery. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski credited more of a motion-offense approach with getting Singler more open on the whole, though Singler had missed plenty of open 3s before Thursday's breakthrough.

"I don't think he lost confidence, or else he wouldn't have come out and shot it that way," Krzyzewwski said. "We've told him, 'Whatever you've done, forget. It's what you're going to do.' In baseball, if you had a really good hitter and he's in a slump, you don't tell him not to swing.

"Getting eight 3s and 30 points in any game is big, but in this type of game it's a spectacular shooting performance."

Thursday's game was the type where it shouldn't have been easy to find a rhythm, where three possessions without a whistle qualified as a breakthrough. Duke (18-4, 6-2 ACC) and Georgia Tech (16-6, 4-4) came hard after each other, piling up 54 free throw attempts off 52 fouls, including an intentional foul (Gani Lawal) and a technical foul (Glen Rice) charged to the Yellow Jackets down the stretch.

"Georgia Tech comes into our games looking at us and trying to just attack us and push us around, thinking that we're small and soft," said Duke junior Nolan Smith, who added 14 points. "Every game they do that, so when we go out there, we're like, 'Fight them first.'

"Today both teams came out fighting, and the refs saw that pretty quick."

The foul totals were even but the impact was not, with Lawal -- who scored 21 points in Georgia Tech's victory over Duke a month ago -- picking up his second foul after 33 seconds and fellow big man Derrick Favors picking up his third four less than seven minutes in.

The foul trouble helped Duke grind out a 27-15 edge on the boards in the first half -- including seven of Duke senior Lance Thomas' game-high 11 rebounds -- and eventually hindered Georgia Tech's ability to keep up on the offensive end.

The Yellow Jackets hung around most of the half, but boosts from a couple of unexpected sources got Duke going. Guard Jordan Davidson saw some rare first-half playing time and responded with a crowd-pleasing rebound among the trees, then freshman Ryan Kelly sank a 3, skied for a rebound and created a turnover to further fire up the Blue Devils.

"Anything we can do to give our team a lift," Davidson said. "You've got guys out there playing almost 40 minutes a game, so anything we can go out there and do to give them energy is a positive for our team."

Still, Georgia Tech trailed just 30-27 heading to the final six minutes of the half. That's when Brian Zoubek and Plumlee led Duke on a 15-6 run to close the half, scoring eight of their 10 points before Singler took over.

"My teammates gave the ball in good positions, got me the ball in rhythm," Singler said. "I was ready to shoot the ball because I knew if I shot it, it had a good chance of going in. That was my mentality."