CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina needed something to turn the tide Saturday afternoon.

Joel Berry might have been an unlikely source for that.

The sophomore guard scored a career-high 19 points, including six in brief stretch when the lead changed in second half, as No. 7 North Carolina defeated Georgia Tech 86-78 in an Atlantic Coast Conference game at the Dean E. Smith Center.

"I didn't have a good first half," Berry said. "I just tried to stay in the game. Later in the second half, I got it going."

Berry's 3-pointer and followed by his three-point play in a 27-second span propelled the Tar Heels into a 72-67 lead with 4:40 left.

"He made two huge, huge plays," Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said. "I don't think he had played well at all until that point. To me, those were the two biggest plays of the game."

Forward Brice Johnson's 15 points and 11 rebounds, guard Marcus Paige's 13 points and forward Isaiah Hicks' 12 points also lifted the Tar Heels (13-2, 2-0 ACC), who won their sixth consecutive game.

Guard Marcus Georges-Hunt tallied 25 points for Georgia Tech (10-4, 0-1), which lost its ACC opener for the 10th season in a row.

Guard Adam Smith scored 14 of his 20 points in the first half and forward Charles Mitchell had 14 points for the Yellow Jackets, who were 2-for-7 on second-half 3s.

"We didn't score inside as much in the second half," Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory said. "They were able to lock in a little bit more on our perimeter guys."

North Carolina didn't take a second-half lead until Johnson's dunk after more than eight minutes had elapsed.

Georgia Tech was back ahead briefly two more times before Berry went to work.

"We needed something to happen and I hit the shot to make it happen," Berry said.

The Tar Heels scored on their last 11 possessions.

"We decided we wanted stops at the end," Johnson said. "We grinded it out."

Georgia Tech led 42-39 at halftime, bolstered by five 3-point baskets. Smith hit four of those.

The tempo seemed to favor North Carolina, which shot 57.7 percent from the field in the second half, after halftime.

"They did a lot of great things in the second half," Gregory said of the Tar Heels. "They came out with a little more pace in the second half."

The Yellow Jackets held a 35-26 lead with slightly more than four minutes to play in the first half.

North Carolina center Joel James had six points in the first three minutes, eclipsing his season high. The senior ended up with 11 points, matching a career high.

The victory gave Williams a 143-57 record in ACC regular-season games. That's the best record in ACC history for a coach in his first 200 league games.

It was another gut-wrenching result for Georgia Tech, which last season lost 10 games by six or fewer points to conference opponents.

"We've got to figure out ways to break through and win the game," Gregory said. "You go out there and fight for it and take it. That's the point we're at right now."

Georges-Hunt was 12-for-15 on free throws, but the Yellow Jackets had only four other free-throw attempts.

Foul trouble hampered Mitchell, who fouled out with 31 seconds to play after spending only 18 minutes on the court.

"It's going to be hard for us to win if he plays only 18 minutes," Gregory said.

NOTES: North Carolina leads the series 67-24, including seven wins in a row against the Yellow Jackets. ... North Carolina has reached the 80-point mark in 11 straight games. ... North Carolina F Kennedy Meeks missed his sixth game in a row with a knee injury, though he went through pregame warmups. ... In the previous seven games, North Carolina allowed an average of seven points off turnovers. Georgia Tech had eight points off turnovers in the first half and 14 points for the game. ... Georgia Tech opened its ACC schedule on the road for the third season in a row. The Yellow Jackets go to Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. ... North Carolina visits Florida State on Monday night, marking its third ACC game in six days.