{"id":24080,"date":"2025-01-08T06:50:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T13:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/strong-defense-propels-durango-to-62-38-win-over-montezuma-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:48:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:48:04","slug":"strong-defense-propels-durango-to-62-38-win-over-montezuma-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/strong-defense-propels-durango-to-62-38-win-over-montezuma-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong defense propels Durango to 62-38 win over Montezuma-Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Marcus
Marcus Cullum of Durango High School puts up a shot while playing Montezuma-Cortez High School on Tuesday at DHS. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango boys basketball head coach Alan Batiste has said all season the key to the Demons\u2019 success will be defense. Durango showed that on Tuesday in its 62-38 win over Montezuma-Cortez at home.<\/p>\n

The Demons used all of their length and height to get into passing lanes, strip Panthers ball handlers and crash the offensive glass. Montezuma-Cortez never got into an offensive rhythm and Durango led by double-digits for most of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to thrive off our defensive effort,\u201d Batiste said. \u201cBut again, active hands is one thing that we\u2019re doing and then we said to rebound, so if we can do those two things, we\u2019ll be good. We\u2019re getting deflections and then we got turnovers that we needed in those stretches to get back out in the open floor, especially when our offense got stagnant coming out the gate and especially in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango improved to 7-2 overall after the win. Senior forward Marcus Cullum led the Demons with 14 points. Senior guard Noah Miles had all 13 of his points in the first half for Durango.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez fell to 8-2 overall after the loss. Senior guard Tay Wheat led the Panthers with 14 points. Sophomore guard Trey Hall had 10 points.<\/p>\n

\"Tay
Tay Wheat of Montezuma-Cortez High School puts up a shot against Durango High School on Tuesday at DHS. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe looked a little rusty coming out of the break,\u201d Montezuma-Cortez head coach Mike Hall said. \u201cWe went into the break pretty hot \u2026 we\u2019ve got to clean some stuff up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Demons were ultra-active with their defense to start the game. Durango got out in transition many times for easy buckets. When they weren\u2019t scoring in transition, Miles got going early thanks to some well-run plays for him. He hit his second 3-pointer to put the Demons up 21-9 after one quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was one of his first times that he\u2019s been in a situation where he came off the bench today; he\u2019s been on vacation and stuff like that,\u201d Batiste said about Miles. \u201cBut he got to see how fast the game was moving. His legs were strong after not having to play tough defense in the first three and a half minutes in the normal games. So he got his legs under him and followed through; he gave us a little boost on that 3-point shot and then we went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango had a noticeable size advantage at almost every position and it used it well early on. The Demons used their length in passing lanes on defense and on the offensive glass. Cullum used his size advantage inside for a tough bucket plus the foul to put Durango up 31-13 with five minutes left in the second.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez struggled to finish some good looks from inside and behind the arc. The Panthers got some transition buckets to temporarily stop the bleeding but Durango still led 37-18 at halftime.<\/p>\n

The Panthers started the third quarter on a 9-0 run as Durango struggled with turnovers. Montezuma-Cortez found some open 3-pointers and hit them, unlike in the first half. Durango freshman Taj Batiste ended that run with a fast break layup. The Demons then found success in the paint and pushed its lead up to 43-26 with 4:17 left to go in the third.<\/p>\n

Durango\u2019s half-court offense struggled for the last half the quarter. The Demons shot a few contested 3-pointers early in the possession that didn\u2019t go down. They were sloppy with their passing in the half-court and couldn\u2019t finish inside.<\/p>\n

The Panthers cut into the deficit because Durango\u2019s defensive aggressiveness was too much for the referees and the Demons were called for fouls, sending the Panthers to the free-throw line late. Durango led 45-34 after three quarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe picked our defensive pressure up and it turned into some offensive stuff for us,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

To start the fourth quarter, Durango looked a lot more like it did in the first quarter. The Demons got stops, got in transition and moved the ball in the half-court. Senior forward Otto Aalland hit two 3-pointers and two free throws as Durango started the fourth quarter on a 14-0 run and led 59-34 with 4:10 left.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the offensive end, he knows that he\u2019s going to be more of a setup guy, not more of an in-the-paint type, powerful finisher,\u201d Batiste said about Aalland. \u201cBut that\u2019s his shot (3-pointers), especially in the corners. That\u2019s just what he does and that\u2019s where he hit them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango heads to the Canon City tournament later this week and plays Canon City to start on Thursday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez plays at Centauri on Jan. 17 at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

bkelly@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14-0 run in fourth quarter to pull away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[950,592,679,642,36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango","tag-durango-high-school","tag-high-school-boys-basketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78391,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080\/revisions\/78391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24080"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}