DURHAM, N.C. — It was one of those nights, when someone like Khaman Malauch could overhydrate himself and download all that Gatorade under the basket, when an overheated student was carried out by guards like a loaf of bread. The kind of hot and steamy only Cameron can get.

Combine that heat with the pressure N.C. State applied, and you get the kind of crucible that can change something soft into something impenetrable, unyielding. Duke is struggling in some ways, but Duke is changing. Duke is evolving.

After a narrow escape at Wake Forest on Saturday, the Blue Devils got everything they could handle from State on Monday, fending off the pesky Wolfpack primarily through the personal intervention of Cooper Flagg, who also happened to be the primary thing that needed toughening.

Flagg had five points in the first half against N.C. State’s swarming defense, Dontrez Styles particularly. He had 23 in the second half, at one point going on a personal 6-0 run — including a 4-point play over Ben Middlebrooks — that essentially put Duke ahead for good on its way to a 74-64 win after the Blue Devils had trailed by as many as 13 late in the first half.

“Soft,” Flagg labeled his first-half performance.

“Agreed,” teammate Sion James said.

Duke may yet go undefeated in the ACC, and analytically speaking there’s a better than one-in-three chance of it. The Blue Devils, far and away the class of the league, are already halfway there. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

Wake gave Duke everything it wanted, and only a curveball switch to zone in the second half jolted Duke out of its stupor. Two days later, N.C. State was dominating at both ends of the court before a 23-2 run on either side of halftime that put Duke in the lead, if not in total control.

“There’s so much room for growth and to get better and to handle that kind of pressure,” Flagg said.

But these are the games — short turnaround, motivated opponent, unexpected cameos from someone like State freshman Trey Parker — that try a team’s true mettle. You can say that if Duke were really the relentless killing machine everyone expects the Blue Devils to be, they wouldn’t have been the team down double digits in the first half. And maybe that’s true.

There’s also something to be said for finding ways to win, whether that’s switching it up on defense or letting your freshman superstar take over on a night when he looked completely lost.

“You could just see he was making a very concerted effort to get to the basket and be physical,” James said. “Not look for fouls. Not look for bailouts. Not take bad shots. Obviously he’s very talented. One of the things that makes him who he is, is he learns very quick. Like he learns on the spot. He learns within a game, within a possession. That’s why he’s been on a tear.”

But it’s not just Flagg. Little-used Patrick Ngongba came in for Malauch and made a critical late basket, corralling a difficult pass from Flagg and managing to finish. James and Mason Gillis have picked up defensive slack with Maliq Brown out. Kon Knueppel kept Duke afloat in the first half when no one else seemed to be able to score.

Lessons are being learned. Experience is mean but efficient.

“The season is such an evolution,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “Our team is continuing to develop and change.”

Duke will be heavily favored in most if not all of its remaining games, including North Carolina back in Cameron on Saturday. A trip to Clemson looms as the biggest hurdle, but as N.C. State — a 22.5-point underdog — showed, even Duke has to get better to keep winning as the heat gets turned up.

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