Dalton Knecht kept it simple.

The Tennessee basketball guard had one defender in front of him. The other eight players were on the opposite half of the court thanks to his teammates clearing out space. The decision was easy.

Knecht used a crossover and a hesitation dribble to blast past Auburn’s Johni Broome and into the open lane. He dunked, swung from the rim, and gave a little fist pump when he came back down beaming in the middle of the latest and best performance of his season at Tennessee.

"What he did in the last 12 minutes (is) one of the great performances that I have been able to see,” Vols coach Rick Barnes said.

That particular play within Knecht's unforgettable 12-minute surge born out of a minor but brilliant tweak in the Vols' offense − and Tennessee used it repeatedly. It helped ignite Knecht's 25 points in 12 minutes among his season-best 39 points to top Auburn 92-84 at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center.

How Rick Barnes tweaked Tennessee’s offense to open up Dalton Knecht

Knecht drifted into the corner with No. 4 Tennessee (22-6, 12-3 SEC) holding a two-point lead with less than seven minutes to play Wednesday against No. 11 Auburn (21-7, 10-5).

He waited as Tobe Awaka and Josiah-Jordan James came to join him.

Barnes had made a change at the under-8 media timeout and this was that move put into action. He altered a staple set of Tennessee’s offense that has three players low near the baseline and two high outside the 3-point line. It normally gives Knecht — or whomever — the opportunity to start in the middle under the hoop and use a screen in either direction.

“Instead of having him have a chance to come off either side, we moved him over to one side and told both guys to go get him open,” Barnes said. “We really gave him two-thirds of the court to try to get him open and get the ball. He did it. Then it is up to him to make the moves and the shots that he thinks he’s got.”

Knecht did time and time again. He ran down the baseline on the first play, using a screen from Awaka to get switched onto Broome. He waved away another Awaka screen into full isolation. He hit a 3-pointer over Broome.

He used it differently the next time, splitting the screens and getting on Broome again. He went by him for a dunk.

“It just gave me a lot more room just to isolate kind of,” Knecht said. “Just to give me the whole side then if I want a screen to call for a screen. It worked.”

The Vols used the set eight times in 10 possessions in the final eight minutes. Knecht started on the left five times and the right three times. He was 3-for-4 shooting out of the adjusted set with seven points. UT got 13 points total on the possessions, pulling away from the Tigers.

"If people want to stick to the shooters, it is going to give him too much space to operate and he is going to get a basket whenever he feels like," guard Zakai Zeigler said. "It is going to work regardless."

Dalton Knecht notched his best half yet for Tennessee basketball

Knecht walked to the scorer’s table with a towel hanging over his shoulders, looking like a prize fighter rejoining the ring. Barnes had called timeout to put Knecht back in the game with 2:45 to play after giving him a brief respite to catch his breath.

The senior touched the ball on 17 of Tennessee’s final 18 possessions in the halfcourt. He scored on 11 of those. He made nine field goals in those 18 possessions and took 11 shots.

“There’s not many of those guys who can do it how he did it,” Barnes said.

Tennessee turned to Knecht when it trailed by eight early in the second half. He scored twice against Auburn’s zone defense, hitting a 3-pointer then using a baseline cut for a dunk.

He had felt good in the first half after back-to-back shots. He was locked in in the second half, fighting through Auburn players tugging his jersey, triple-teams and more to produce at a ridiculous clip.

Knecht had 27 second-half points, surpassing his previous remarkable halves at North Carolina, Mississippi State and Georgia. Wednesday was his sixth 20-point half and his best one yet. It also was his sixth 30-point game and his fifth in SEC play, setting him up for SEC player of the year honors, All-American honors and putting his name in the national player of the year conversation.

“At the end, we were just spacing out and trying to give him room to operate,” Barnes said.

It was that simple.

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee basketball: Dalton Knecht used Rick Barnes plan to torch Auburn