They still don’t look right. Not fully. Not quite. At some point, they’ll need to. But never mind that now.
They get to play another day. That’s all anyone could ask.
And all anyone could want from Cade Cunningham, after he dropped a career-high 45 points – a Detroit Pistons franchise record for a playoff game – to keep the Pistons’ season alive, as they beat the Orlando Magic in Game 5, 116-109. He was more patient and more deliberate than he was in Florida during two losses.
When the game was on the line Wednesday, he took the ball, crossed over with his dribble, pulled the ball back between his legs, and hit the game-sealing jumper. He made the play that had eluded him, and he looked more fresh down the stretch.
The Pistons needed every breath of his rediscovered wind. Because Orlando kept coming and coming, especially Banchero, who matched Cunningham virtually shot for shot to also score 45.
The Magic can’t shoot. But any NBA team can shoot when the shots are wide open.
Too often, particularly in the first half, the Pistons missed their defensive switches, and two defenders wound up on one Magic player – and not the one with the ball.
Orlando also used dribble penetration to collapse the defense and force the Pistons to scramble, chasing passes around the perimeter until the Magic found the open man.
It was a high variance performance beyond the arc for Orlando, and if the Magic shoot like this back home for Game 6, that’ll be tough to overcome, combined with all the other nuisance-oriented things they do on the court.
Like chirping, as Desmond Bane has done to Duncan Robinson the entire series. He holds. He jaws. He tries to draw fouls. Mostly, he wants to get into Robinson’s head and break his concentration.
Just as Wendell Carter Jr. has done to Jalen Duren, who finally began to look more like himself. Orlando also loves to swarm rebounders, poking and swatting and baiting.
If it leads to a steal? Gravy. The real purpose has been to slow the Pistons’ fast break. To force them into a halfcourt offense. To keep them from finding any flow.
The Pistons found it early and found it late. In between, they booted the ball too often and missed too many rotations, and the Magic cut a 17-point first-half deficit to six at the break.
Things got even scarier in the third, with Banchero making everything, and Detroit began to sag a bit. To coach J.B. Bickerstaff’s credit, he relit the fuse when he put Thompson, Javonte Green, Isaiah Stewart, Daniss Jenkins and Cunningham together late in the third quarter.
The group brought energy and defensive focus, and when Thompson started swooping in for offensive rebounds, often ripping them away from a thicket of Orlando bigs, well, the roof nearly blew.
This city loves its defense, and Thompson embodies the tradition. When, on consecutive possessions, he snuck in to steal outlet passes, the crowd rose to its feet and gave him the loudest ovation of the night.
He is, unquestionably, the Pistons’ second-best player in this series, and when he is doing what only he can do, like miss a steal from behind, race across the floor and block the same player’s shot from behind, he gives the Pistons a bookend to Cunningham.
Good thing, too, because for too many stretches the Pistons played hot potato with the basketball, continuing to turn it over too often. They committed 17 turnovers, leading to 22 points for the Magic. That’s obviously no way to win on the road on Friday.
They weren’t quite as casual – a word Tobias Harris used to describe their play in Orlando – with the ball as they were in Florida. And yet, there were moments, such as when Cunningham flipped a behind-the-back pass downcourt to a streaking Duncan Robinson, who tried to finish with a wild lefty layup and missed.
There was no need.
Just as there was no need to keep forcing the ball ahead on the break, into traffic, no need for trying to throw home-run passes instead of settling for singles (if you like the whole cross-sports metaphor thing).
And yet, there were more fundamental moments. The Pistons attacked the rim from the opening tip. Harris led the way early, determined to show his younger teammates what he meant by being “ready for playoff basketball.”
Harris not only helped jumpstart the Pistons, he helped finish Orlando late, hitting a couple of critical short jump shots when the Magic – and Banchero – kept dropping haymakers from the 3-point line.
He finished with 23 points and eight rebounds. More than that, he helped remind the Pistons who they can be, even if they aren’t quite there yet. They’ve got another game though, and more practice on how to handle the irritants from Central Florida.
The next must-win is next.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons needed every breath of Cade Cunningham’s reborn wind
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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