The Pistons aren't ready to call it a summer just yet.
The group that transformed a 14-win squad into a playoff team is sticking together – heading back to Detroit, and maybe, just maybe, returning to New York.
Cade Cunningham delivered 24 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as the Pistons edged the Knicks 106-103 on Tuesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series, staying alive in their first postseason run since 2019.
Despite facing elimination, the Pistons felt no added pressure during what could have been their final shootaround Tuesday morning – a fitting mindset for a team that finished 44-38 in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NBA history.
"Everybody’s got a back’s-against-the-wall type of mentality, but the group really loves being around each other, and I think that was one of the biggest things,” forward Tobias Harris said. "Like, we don’t want this thing to stop. Like, we’ve got to keep on fighting.”
Ausar Thompson added 22 points and Harris had 17 for the Pistons, who will have a chance to even things up Thursday night at home in Game 6. If they win that, the deciding game would be back at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
Detroit, though, has lost an NBA record-tying nine straight home playoff games since 2008.
But the Pistons seem comfortable in New York, where they were 2-0 in the regular season and now 2-1 in this series – including their Game 2 victory that snapped their 15-game postseason losing streak, the longest in NBA history.
Not surprisingly, they still like their chances in the series.
“Confident,” Cunningham said. “We’ll be back.”
OG Anunoby scored 19 points for the Knicks, who were trying to reach the Eastern Conference semifinals for the third straight season but never fully recovered from a poor start. Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges each had 17, but Jalen Brunson had his worst game of the postseason with 16 points on 4-for-16 shooting.
“We just put ourselves in a deficit early,” Towns said. “All series we’ve been fighting back.”
The game was tied at 95 before Jalen Duren made consecutive baskets and Cunningham scored for a six-point lead. The Pistons caught a break when Brunson and Josh Hart both left the game with injuries with 2:57 remaining, and play continued for a while without a stoppage while they were ready to return. By the time they could, only 27 seconds remained.
Brunson had scored 30 or more points in every game of the series and was averaging 33.3 through four games before not even getting halfway there Tuesday, when the Knicks were trying to win a series on their home floor for the first time since the 1999 Eastern Conference finals.
Now they will try to do it in Detroit, where they won Games 3 and 4.
Duren finished with nine points, 14 rebounds and six assists.
