BOSTON – When the Detroit Pistons walked into the visiting locker room at halftime of Thursday night’s game with the Boston Celtics, it seemed as if they had a chance to not only shock the basketball world, but land a dubious place in the history books. There is a chance to escape from this also. Process.
Detroit, which had fallen by 16.5 points after losing 27 consecutive games, found itself ahead of Boston, the NBA’s best team by 19 points, with a perfect 14–0 record at the TD Garden.
Then the second part started. And as soon as Detroit took over the game, Boston immediately got back into it. By the end of the third quarter, the Celtics had erased that halftime deficit. Despite the Pistons fighting valiantly to force overtime, it was ultimately Boston that claimed a 128–122 victory.
With the loss, the Pistons tied the 76ers for the longest losing streak overall, set by Philadelphia with 28 consecutive losses at the end of the 2014–15 season and the beginning of the 2015–16 campaign. The Pistons could set a new record for futility when they face the Toronto Raptors in Detroit on Saturday.
“I just told them it takes a lot of character and integrity to do what they’re doing,” Pistons coach Monty Williams said. “I’ve been in the league for a while and I’ve seen teams give up in the situations we’re dealing with. It was admirable. Obviously, we had a tough third quarter, and had the ability to fight and come back and To achieve this in the fourth too was tremendous.
“I feel bad for them. We feel like if we keep playing like this, we’re getting closer to winning not just one game, but a lot of games.”
For most of the contest, it looked like the 2–29 Pistons would eventually get back in the win column. Boston (24-6), back home after winning the final three games of a four-game West Coast swing, appeared to do exactly what Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla warned before the game: take its struggling opponent lightly. Take it.
When Mazzulla was asked what the challenge was in facing a team in Detroit’s situation, he said, “I think it’s expected to go a certain way or it’s assumed to be easy.” “This is not the case.
“It’s another game, regardless of the other team’s record. And I think sometimes you get caught up in that — because this is the team, we should be up by this amount in the first quarter, halftime — and it Doesn’t work that way.”
It certainly wasn’t working on Thursday, as Majulla’s players went out and immediately looked like a team expecting to be on their way to victory.
Instead, Boston found itself in a dogfight with Detroit that extended to an additional five minutes after Pistons forward Bojan Bogdanovic tied the score with a putback with 4.6 seconds remaining in regulation. Ultimately, Boston was able to advance in overtime, as Kristaps Porzingis (35 points) and Jayson Tatum (31) proved too much for Detroit to handle.
In many ways, Detroit did enough to win. The league’s worst 3-point shooting team made more threes (14) than Boston (11), which entered the game as the NBA’s most prolific team from deep. The Pistons had 31 second-chance points and repeatedly struggled for extra shots. Detroit got strong performances from Cade Cunningham (31 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists) and Jaden Ivy (22 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists) before fouling out in overtime.
But it was not enough to break Boston’s undefeated start to the season at home or stop Detroit’s never-ending losing streak.
“I’m not interested in just winning one more game this year to prevent that. In my opinion, that would be easy. I think our goals are higher than that. We have everything it takes to win one game.” It’s important. That’s what it’s all about. But putting games together and finding our system, finding what’s going on and allowing us to continue winning… that’s what we’re looking for right now.”
Cade Cunningham
Still, Williams praised his team’s effort.
“He brings a spirit, honesty and tenacity to the gym every day,” he said. “They hear everything that people say about them and us because they’re on social media. It doesn’t stop them from doing their job but also from playing at the level and standard that we talk about every day. We do.
“We can’t do anything about the noise; we can control how we do our jobs. And as bad as they hurt right now, I hurt for them. But I told them if we Let’s bring grit and toughness and execution, barring turnovers, we’re not just going to win a game, we’re going to do something together. It doesn’t matter what people say; we don’t have to shut people down. We just have to keep moving forward. It’s better to grind and produce or put something on the floor that is productive that can make our fans happy.”
After the Pistons led by 21 points in the first half, Boston outscored Detroit 35–16 in the third quarter and came back to tie the score in the fourth quarter.
Yet even after gaining that lead, Detroit showed an impressive level of fight. The Pistons responded by pushing the Celtics back within four points on several occasions to start the fourth – the latest when Ivey split a pair of free throws with 4:23 remaining.
However, Boston immediately responded with back-to-back buckets by Porzingis to take the lead before a Tatum layup and a Porzingis 3-pointer cut Boston’s lead to 106–100.
Ivy then scored six consecutive points – first on an A-and-1 and then on a corner 3 – to get back to even with 1:02 to play. Bogdanovic missed a wide-open 3 with 36 seconds remaining that would have given Detroit the lead, and when Cunningham was called for field goal, Tatum was credited with a layup with 8.7 seconds remaining.
Still, the Pistons had one more chance to tie or win. When Cunningham’s 3-pointer missed short, Bogdanovic was there to make the putback for the tie. After Tatum missed a potential winner on the other end, the contest went into overtime.
And from there, Boston did enough to survive – and send Detroit home with another loss.
But after the Pistons’ fifth consecutive competitive loss – and, in this case, after going to overtime with the league’s top team – Cunningham and the Pistons believe a breakthrough can finally be found.
“This is what we’re going for, man,” Cunningham said. “I’m not interested in just winning one more game this year to prevent that. In my opinion, that would be easy. I think our goals are higher than that. We have everything it takes to win one game.” It’s important. That’s what it’s all about. But putting games together and finding our system, finding what’s going on and allowing us to continue winning… that’s what we’re looking for right now.”
