ORLANDO – Turns out there will be a Game 7. That’s the easy part to explain.
The hard part?
Well, history has to start somewhere, and for the Detroit Pistons, it began in the simplest of spots, with a Cade Cunningham stepback jumper on the baseline.
A bread-and-butter shot from the Pistons’ best player. That cut the lead to 22.
Tobias Harris followed with a 3-pointer, and in that moment, early in the third quarter, after the Pistons had played their worst half of basketball in what felt like months, there was this:
They were showing pride – at least they weren’t going to lose by 30.
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Cunningham hit another jumper. Jalen Duren made a layup. Duncan Robinson hit a 3-pointer. They got it to 10 for a few possessions and then stalled as the Magic hit a couple 3s and pushed the lead back to 17.
And still, the Pistons kept coming. Dribble by dribble. Pass by pass. Shot by improbable shot.
They cut it to nine, and then eight and then five, and when they tied it and then took the lead at the free throw line, Orlando had nothing left. The Magic missed 23 straight shots. They scored just 19 points in the second half – as many as Cunningham had in the fourth quarter alone.
History? Yeah, and then some.
It’d be easy to say the Pistons didn’t want their season to end. No team in the postseason does. Well, maybe some teams do, but certainly not this one, not after this season, not after this journey, from 14 wins to 60 in less than 24 months, from ignominy to the No. 1 seed.
So, yeah, they didn’t want their season to end. Then they did something about it in historic fashion, coming back from 24 down to beat the Magic, 93-79, here in Game 6 at Kia Center.
Wait, what?
Did that just happen?
Did Cunningham rise up from the left wing after the most unlikely turnaround you’ll ever see, after the Magic finally responded to the onslaught and cut Detroit’s lead to five, and hit the dagger 3-pointer?
Yes, he did. He knew it was good the moment he released it and held the 3-finger kiss to the crowd.
Splash.
Ball game.
Improbable? How about indescribable. The comeback, yes. But also, the collapse. One doesn’t happen without the other.
Let’s not undermine what the Pistons just did, though, the place they found, the guts they showed, the competitive spirit they tapped into – finally.
They were led by Cunningham. Who else? And Ausar Thompson, who patrolled the skies once more in the second half. And Robinson, who finally found a rhythm from deep.
And yes, Paul Reed, folks. One of two players with a positive plus/minus through three quarters. Not a perfect measurement, of course. But it speaks to his hustle.
The other?
Robinson, which speaks to his shooting, at least when he’s making shots and holding reasonably steady on defense. He’s been a liability on that end for much of the series. In the third quarter Friday, though, he helped bring some juice, a long way from the end of the second quarter, when he subbed in for offense with 16 seconds left in the half.
He took the ball out on the far side of the court. Cunningham couldn’t get open. Duren couldn’t. Harris flashed on the opposite side, but the 5-second count was almost complete, and Robinson panicked and heaved it over the entire court and out of bounds.
Desmond Bane laughed and smirked in Robinson’s face. Orlando led by 22.
But back to Reed, who took Isaiah Stewart’s shift in the third quarter, and then kept playing, and competing, and … finishing? Yeah, finishing. He’s sneaky like that. Dare we say he’s magical like that, with either hand: Unorthodox as it goes up, textbook as it goes down, and into the net.
That Reed was doing this, out there in an elimination game, makes sense. This is who the Pistons have been all season. They just hadn’t been this for so much of this series, including early Friday night.
Digging a hole in the first half
It looked so different back then.
On the opening play, Cunningham lost focus as he tried to catch a simple pass and that left Detroit taking the ball out from Orlando’s baseline with 1.5 seconds left on the shot clock.
Predictably, the possession went nowhere.
An omen? A bit of foreshadowing?
Yeah, for what was coming in the second quarter. The Magic blitzed them. Took the spirit of the game to a higher level, and the Pistons curiously didn’t join them.
They weren’t ready.
Teams go on runs, that’s one thing. This was another. Orlando bullied them on the glass to start the quarter, beginning their push with a flurry of second-chance points. It all led to a 35-12 second quarter, and if you figured it was over, you weren’t a hater.
Or a quitter.
The Pistons deserved your ire in that moment, just as they deserve your … admiration for the force they found in the locker room at half time.
It began inauspiciously, as history often does. The Cunningham fade on the baseline. The Harris 3-pointer. The small moments that kept coming until the droplets formed a tsunami.
The Pistons found themselves just in time. Now they have to do it one more time.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons didn’t want their season to end. So they stepped up
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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