The Pistons Came Back From 3-1 Down, Cade Cunningham Went for 32 and 12, and Detroit Just Won Their First Playoff Series in 18 Years
What a ride. The Pistons spent four games looking like they were about to be one of the biggest first-round upsets in NBA history. Down 3-1 to an 8-seed Magic team that had no business hanging with them. The 60-win season, the best record in the East, all of it about to go up in smoke.
Then they ran off three straight wins and closed it Sunday at Little Caesars Arena. Pistons 116, Magic 94. Cade Cunningham went for 32 and 12 assists. Tobias Harris dropped 30. The bench was waving towels with three minutes left. Detroit is moving on.
This is the city’s first playoff series win since 2008. Eighteen years. There’s grown adults in Detroit who have never seen the Pistons win a single playoff series in their lifetime as basketball fans. Last time it happened, Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace were still running it. That’s how long this drought has been.
How they did it
Down 3-1, you can’t lose another game. Detroit won Game 5 in Detroit by 7 (the Cade 45 / Banchero 45 game everybody was talking about). Won Game 6 in Orlando by 14. Won Game 7 at home by 22. The further it went, the more it stopped feeling like an upset and started feeling like a Detroit team that finally got it together.
Tobias Harris was the X-factor in Games 5, 6, and 7. Dude had a bunch of quiet years in Philly and people kind of forgot he could still play. He’s been one of the steadiest scorers in this whole playoffs. JB Bickerstaff has him in the right spots and he’s making them pay.
Cade was Cade. The dude is just built different in big moments. Three triple-double-adjacent stat lines in the closeout games. He didn’t have the loudest series in terms of one big number but you watch him play and there’s NO question he’s a top-10 player now.
The Magic story
Don’t sleep on what Orlando did either. They were the 8-seed. They smacked the Pistons in Games 1, 3, and 4. Paolo Banchero came of age this series — the dude went for 45 in Game 5, averaged over 30 a night, and showed everybody he’s a real playoff problem. Franz Wagner was hurt down the stretch (right calf strain) and you have to wonder if a healthy Franz changes Game 6 or 7.
The Magic are a team to watch next year. Banchero is 23 and just torched a 60-win team. Jamahl Mosley keeps his coaching job (probably). They’ve got pieces. The only question is whether their owner spends to bring back the role guys whose contracts are up.
What this means for round 2
Pistons get the Cavs in the East semifinals. Cavs survived their own Game 7 over the Raptors Sunday night. Both teams just barely made it through. Both teams are tired. Whoever’s bench shows up first probably wins this thing.
Game 1 is Tuesday in Detroit. ESPN’s expert panel picked Pistons 6-2 to win the series. They’ve been the better team all year. The Cavs lost their best non-Mitchell scorer (Darius Garland) for chunks of the season and never quite looked right. But Cleveland just won a Game 7 too. Don’t sleep on them.
This is the matchup nobody saw coming when the playoffs started. Detroit was supposed to roll. Now they’re 4-3, beat up, and have to do it again starting Tuesday. But hey, they’re alive. That’s more than most expected after Game 4.
