Cade Cunningham despite the loss: 39/5/4 on 13⁄27 FG
https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401869193
39 points
5 rebounds
4 assists
13⁄27 FG, 3⁄8 3PT, 10⁄11 FT
He looked great. Sad how the team has no offensive juice outside of him. A contender for a player like Kawhi maybe
Kawhi would retire before living in Detroit
If they offer to plant enough trees in his name or something, maybe
Lol
I totally forgot about the Aspirations Scandal lol
So did adam silver
Thats exactly what they want
They’ll offer to clean the drinking water.
The Aspiration investigators deliver their final verdict: Take him to Detroit
That pops up in my mind whenever there’s any talk of a player coming to the Pistons.
Depends how much extra money he gets paid doing nothing.
He wouldnt retire. He would be too “injured” to play while collecting his contract money lol.
Yooo😹
Detroit is pretty much Canada plus crime.
And if he was traded there, he doesn’t have a choice
Dawg he played for Toronto what are we talking about here
I’m from Detroit and love Detroit with all my heart. It is not even in the same conversation as Toronto lol
If you’re really from Detroit you wouldn’t be saying that and Novi amd Dearborn are literally right there that offers just as much for high income people
That being said, if we’re talking straight city for city, sure Toronto has Detroit beat but not by that much
Every major city got a novi and Dearborn.
Nobody got a Beverly Hills, Coco Plum, or a Manhattan.
Yea as someone from Detroit Toronto is definitely a nicer city
Torontos nicer than detroit and he was in a much better situation with my raptors and he still left us in the off season (granted because of an under the table deal). Someone willing to do shady shit like that and not give a shit about the game, or would rather go home to a worse situation in LA than stay with the raptors is not going to be happy on the pistons.
Man I wonder how this sub would react to that
Especially if it happened right before the trade deadline
I would be hype, ngl. We need more great players in the East.
Booker if he’s willing to leave Arizona he’s from the Michigan area too
Booker would be peak but he is expensive asl.
Mpj is more fiscally responsible
He was definitely the best option at the deadline, don’t know what the summer will look like. I wouldn’t be totally against it, have no idea what the price is though
I would rather swing for the fences and get a good second option
No one on this roster besides Cade is irreplaceable
And imo Cade is the type of guy who makes his teammates better
No please
Jaden Ivey not panning out killed them. They really need another guard who can consistently create and score. Duren had a great season, but he can’t shoot or really consistently create his own offense. Thompson can’t shoot, and Tobias Harris can be inconsistent at times.
I still think they’re going to win the series, but Cade needs someone to do something.
Yea you can’t have both Duren and Thompson together imo. One of them will have to be moved to maximize this team’s potential even tho that is a very difficult decision. Altho Bickerstaff already had moments this season where he didn’t play Thompson so maybe they would do it. They’re one of the rare teams in the league where they just don’t have enough offensive firepower
My favorite hypothetical Austin Reaves team
yeah, they should offer him blank check now
Once he locked in he looked all the part of a superstar player. Give that man a costar
They need a kon type player
Everyone needs a kon type player lol
The last thing they need is someone bricking shots in the playoffs.
They need a legit guard to play next to Cade and run the offense when he sits
I love the idea of it. He’s getting up there though
The trade would go through and the league would immediately ban him for life for the Aspiration scandal
He desperately needs a robin. Jalen Durens archetype is not viable as a second option in the modern nba for playoffs.
yes please dismantle and trade for kawhi, which barely plays since he joined the clippers
In the last 3 years Kawhi has played in more games than Franz Wagner and he’s like 10 years older than him.
lets ship his ass
What a weird gotcha. “No Kawhi isn’t injury prone, because your team has someone who is also injury prone”
What a weird straw man. Who said Kawhi isn’t injury prone?
Quite concerning for Detroit that he had an above-average efficiency game (for his standards) and they still lost.
Pistons are exactly the type of team that has a good regular season supporting cast but a bad playoff one
Putting a stacked defensive roster around your star PG is a great way to win a ton of regular season games but if none of those guys can also self-create it becomes very easy to gameplan against
the last few minutes of the game they had my dude Cade spamming shots like NBA2k, just not a way to win playoff games at all
I think the pre CP3 Harden Rockets ran into this exact issue.
Yep, pretty much the exact reason they got him.
Yeah it’s gonna be an issue. I understand the numbers weren’t terrible without him in the regular season, but defenses change in the playoffs. 7 games against the same team, they’re going to search for every possible avenue of attack. The simplest being every time Cade, Ausar and Duren share the floor, pack the lane like you’re trying to shove a week’s worth of clothes into a carry on.
Isn’t that literally the makeup of the defending NBA champions?
Not one player on the Pistons is close to the secondary offensive creation of Jdub or Ajay Mitchell.
Also they have the small ball lineup option with Chet as a spacing 5 that simplifies offense.
Dub was horrible last playoffs due to his injury, and Ajay literally didn’t play.
The main difference is that Shai is a much better player than Cade.
Dub was only bad in one series really
Jdub still drop 40 in multiple series and was a consistent play creator, hed sleep walk into the second best offensive player on this piston team with two broken wrists.
The real main difference is OKC as a collective is nba caliber in 3 point shooting, whereas we are literally the worst shooting team in the league. Spacing can make a big difference. Also in general your team is more talented and deeper.
Okc has guys that can score as well. Thats literally why they’re so unfair lmao. They have a wide variety of defensive and offensive guys
Chet is a much better offensive player than Duren, just for one example
Also a much better defensive player.
No, the difference is mostly on defense. Offensively I’m not sure Chet is better at all.
The significant shooting gap isn’t a factor to you?
you mean from 3? Because sure, Duren doesn’t shoot 3s. But he has the highest TS% in the league this season, meaning that he’s clearly an extremely efficient offensive player anyway.
Not at all. They have jdub, McCain, and chet. Also their other guys are good shooters Detroit is built terribly for the playoffs.
Shai is better by quite a bit though
Yea, but they’re pretty much somewhat better in every department.
Shai > Cade
IHart + Chet > Duren + BeefStew
slew of guards and wings that commit reaching fouls every possession: OKC ones are more capable scorers
Jalen Williams had 20+ a game, Chet around 15 and 4 other guys with around 10 pts. Today, Pistons only had Cade and Tobias in double digits.
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Thats the problem with box score watching, you didn’t see the wide open shots the rest of the team were missing or them getting stripped going for a layup
Also the Kawhi Raptors.
Lowry? Vanvleet? Gasol?
Vanvleet in 2019 was not that guy. He averaged 8ppg in the playoffs. Lowry and Siakam were the other two creators, but Siakam was extremely inconsistent. Lowry was certainly a step up from what the pistons have, but none of those guys except Kawhi were consistent creators.
Siakam was stellar as the third option like what duren should be as primarily play finisher, while lowry played the lead playmaker before kawhi and pascal got to their spots. Cade has to play essentiallly both kawhi and lowrys role. And thats not even including gasol who is a stellar play connector.
Lowry is the lead ballhandler and dropped 30 multiple nights. Kawhi just had to get to his spot to iso. Cade essentially playing both their positions as no one cares if ausar has the ball and tobias cant really playmake well. Even pascal was more multifaceted on offense than duren. Plus ibaka and gasol could stretch the floor and gasol was in his passing bag his last few years. Lowry, pascal and gasol made the offense hum while kawhi focused on getting to his spot and iso. Instead cade has to do too much; even doncic needed a secondary guard in brunson and irving.
Jalen williams is a much better secondary scoring option than the pistons guys outside of cade. They’re a better 3 point shooting team, while we’ve known going into the playoffs that the pistons dont take many 3s. The pistons are second last in 3pa in the league, while the thunder are respectably in the middle of the pack.
Jdub is a great secondary ball handler and they have shooters everywhere. The Pistons have neither
OKC has 5 guys on their bench that can shot create better than anyone one the pistons other than Cade
How are you a top 1% commentator who doesn’t understand basketball?
A star PG and a bunch of defensive guys literally just won the championship last year
Actually that’s the meta right now. Heliocentric offenses dominate the league
Because they’re easier to build a good team with. They don’t win as many championships. Jokic doesn’t pound the ball when he has it; 2024 Boston did not just put the ball in Tatum’s hands and say, “cook”; Curry does much of his work off ball; Jrue led 2021 Milwaukee in assists and Khris Middleton was their best crunch time option; AD led the 2020 Lakers in playoff scoring (by two points over LeBron); Lowry led the 2019 Raptors in assists, presumably by a lot. Pretty the only time a heliocentric offense has been a reliable way to win a championship is if you have a GOAT-level playmaker (LeBron, Magic)
Lebron never really won in a heliocentric offense: AD, Kyrie, and Wade/Bosh were all great scorers.
Mmmmmmmm huh
The problem was duren who’s a third team all nba guy disappeared and lot of guys missed good looks
Imo even the bigger problem was we did not play good defense at all
Your guys have been missing good looks all year round because they’re just not good shooters (with the exception of Duncan Robinson and sometimes Harris).
The difference is that in the regular season you can beat people on the glass and score with rebounds… but the Magic are bigger than other teams, and so you struggle.
I think this is just a very bad match up with Duren. He’s still a freak physically but he’s 6’10” going against 7’ WCJ, with Paolo and Franz at 6’10” lurking around.
WCJ also 6’10” but yeah we’re a team of SGs and PFs
He was unstoppable as soon as he had his man slightly beat. Was making amazing passes if the help defense was at the rim too. It’s wild how much better he is than everyone else on his team
players like Duren and Thompson aren’t exactly schleps either. goes to show what a 1 seed looks like, same with OKC where Shai is head and shoulders above what is also a good team without him
APB still out for Jalen Duren
bro is going to make either 2nd or 3rd team all nba
somehow this man might make 2nd team ALL NBA
who in their right mind thinks this is a TOP 10 PLAYER IN ALL OF THE NBA
don’t need to be a top 10 player to make all nba. just need to have a great szn and team success which he did
Theoretically you should be one of the 10 best players to make 2nd team in that given year now that its positionless. In no universe was duren one of the 10 best players this year lol
He was
It’s not about being a top 10, he had a great year, one game changes nothing. I mean Brown gonna make 1st team, ain’t no way he is top 5
He soft
He is insane
If they ever build a team around him they will be a tough out
Tobi, Duren, and Ausar let this guy rot out there
Ausar at least showed effort and made plays on defense. Tobi was chucking terrible shots and Duren looked uninterested
Jalen Duren is a playoff no show
It legit felt like he wasn’t even on the court
Obviously he had a great game but he does this thing where he stops getting his teammates involved and just tries to do everything himself. Duren should in no way have 4 FGA with someone like Cade running the point.
That’s not something typical of him, its just nobody else could do shit. Duren was ass all night anyways.
He has like a 50 FGA game this year lol I’d say it’s pretty typical
Box score watchers shouldn’t pretend like they actually know anything.
Yes you, who took a box score from an overtime game (where they WON, by the way) that you probably didn’t watch, know more about how Cade plays than Pistons fans.
Like 6 of our rotation players where out that game and he still had 13 assists
The entire team outside of Cade and Duncan Robinson made 15 shots and had 10 turnovers. I think he was making good choices.
Duncan Robinson was 3-8 I’m not sure he gets to go in the “these guys made shots” category alongside Cade.
Get this man some help please
Brother you guys won 60 games and were like 13-4 without Cade this year. How much more help do you need to lose to temu Melo
The thing is the Pistons are exactly the type of defensively-slanted team that plays well without their star in the regular season but becomes overly reliant on him in a playoff setting
If this was a random Tuesday in December they would have won but it’s not
It’s more like their entire offense is based on physical interior scoring which works in the regular season because nobody wants to deal with it and then in the playoffs the other teams try a lot harder and they still can’t shoot.
You’re both wrong, the reality is our all star center player like shit and that’s the reason our offense was bad, also all of our guards played like shit outside of Cade
A lot of those wins without Cade were against garbage teams
The magic have been mid all year
But this isn’t the magic. This is Game 1 Magic
We need guys that can score and create their own shots.
We all do.
Did you even watch the game? Tell me what incredible “help” Cade had.
The fact that Tobias Harris got the 2nd most shots tonight (by a big margin) is genuinely perverted. Wtf
Who else is going to get them though
Duren should be getting 10-14 shots down in the paint but he completely no showed tonight
You’re about to pay Duren 250 million dollars
You guys just got magic’d. They’re the most volatile team in the league that gave up a 31-0 run to the raptors. They won’t be consistent enough to win a 7 game series, gotta just move on from it. Sometimes they play extremely well. Just last week their entire sub was begging to get bounced by the hornets so their coach could get fired
Game 1 Magic, baby! And we still want Mosley fired, but we’ll save that for after the playoffs.
They’re playing like someone confirmed he’s going to be fired after Sixers game
Unfortunately he has to carry Jalen “East Deandre Ayton” Duren
Tonight reminded me a lot of our series with Detroit last year. They’re a better team, but the fundamental issues remain.
MPJ YOU ARE A PISTON
I was watching and thought Jalen Duren must be injured and in the locker room. Turns out he was playing
We have to find a solution to teams packing the paint. Duncan + Huerter lineup sort of stuff probably.
That’s a good chance, Magic might be too dumb to target them on defense.
one of the best defensive teams over the last 4 years will be too dumb to do something great on defence, aight man
did you even read? That sentence means that Magic might be too dumb to target Duncan+Huerter on defense - meaning, when the Pistons play defense.
I think it’s a pretty common opinion that the Magic’s offense is quite their strongest point.
One man army
Tobias harris is a problemmm
You can’t really as much more out of him, but he was essentially the only way they could get a look. I was skeptical of their playoff offense, but had come around on it after their success without Cade. That was pretty rough though.
39 points. perfect example of the problems with detroit. too dependent on him. and if cade starts out slow, he starts taking more shots, so the team relies on him more.
i really want detroit being good, but more pistons losses and him not getting some offensive help, more chance he’ll come back home :)
If your star is putting up a monster stat line in a loss then I would be worried if I’m a Pistons fan.
Eh Cade putting up big scoring numbers usually means the rest of the team isn’t playing well and he has to chuck
As a Magic fan, I know what Tracy McGrady stats look like. Come playoff time you HAVE to get your team involved.
He was good.
basically 5v1 on the floor. Old man tobias out here 5-15 lol. If Franz was 100 percent this series would be a sweep.
Pistons in 6 watch
Great game for Cade, Magic locked down everyone else.
He needs someone else that can create offense in the half court badly.
Mofo needs help, don’t think Detroit has enough for the distance
Pls call Utah and get Lauri. These two look like a match made in heaven and East could use a real contender.
Feel like they should’ve made a real move at the deadline. Everyone always says they’ve got a long runway, but things are just so unpredictable from year to year. They’ll probably still win, but I feel a 1st or 2nd round exit would be a disappointment after the great regular season they had.
sorry this loss was my fault I’m a Warriors fan rooting for the Pistons and I turned this game into a Curry game
The 2022 Detroit Mavericks
The Burrow of the NBA
burrow went to a superbowl and the cade’s team was 13-5 without him this year
That’s a lot of shots. Are his teammates that bad at shooting.
It took a playoff game for people to see the team is slightly overrated as a whole and he’s by FAR our best player. Him > Luka as a take isnt as asinine as ppl say