When Cade Cunningham finally took a seat in Game 6 of these Eastern Conference semifinals on Friday, May 15, the TV cameras caught him with the slightest hint of a smile.
This is unusual for the all-business Cunningham, who is mature and serious beyond his 24 years. He might have been smiling at what he’d just helped accomplish: the complete demolition, in their own building, of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team hoping to move on to the next round and instead were facing one more trip to Detroit.
But Cunningham could have been smiling about something else.
Because in some ways, his team has already won.
The Detroit Pistons are now within one game of the Eastern Conference finals. They have beaten back the dragons of elimination four times. They’ve already captured one Game 7. Should they win this last hurrah against the Cavs on Sunday (8 p.m., Prime Video) at Little Caesars Arena, they will have outleaped expectations the way Bob Beamon did in that sandpit in the 1968 Olympics.
Remember, this is a franchise that won a shameful 14 games two years ago. A team that was overjoyed just to make the postseason last year. At the trade deadline in February, Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon made a calculated risk. His squad was 37-12, the second-best record in the league. He could have said, “Let’s go for it. Let’s add a major piece, shake things up – maybe rent a superstar – and shoot for the moon.”
(By the way, Cleveland did this. At that same deadline, they traded away All-Star guard Darius Garland, who was only 26, for aging superstar James Harden, 36, and added backup guard Dennis Schröder for depth.)
Langdon did basically nothing – one trade, sending bench-based guard Jaden Ivey to Chicago in a three-way deal for guard Kevin Huerter and a pick swap with Minnesota. Despite calls for a big, dramatic move, the Pistons exec essentially stood pat. He wanted to see what this already overachieving group could do as constructed.
That was a major gamble.
The gamble has paid off.
These Pistons ‘just don’t quit’
The Pistons, through this 2026 playoff roller coaster, have already been sharpened like Valyrian steel. They’ve had their heads in the dragon’s mouth four times and escaped. They’ve been down 24 points in a second half and won. Been ahead by nine with under three minutes to go and lost.
Their flaws have been exposed (too many turnovers, a lack of second scoring options after Cunningham, a recurring habit of chasing the ball and leaving 3-point shooters open) but so has their ability to work around them. And the words “time to step up” have been passed like a baton to different players every night.
Young players with no previous playoff experience (Daniss Jenkins, Marcus Sasser) have now had spotlight moments that have changed games. Teammates with just last year’s first-round loss under their postseason belts (Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart) are now playoff-tested, perhaps enough to win another Game 7 and make the conference finals.
They have jelled as a unit. This likely doesn’t happen if they are trying to work in a new superstar. By leaving the cake in the oven, Langdon got to see how high it would rise.
And how solid it would get.
“They just don’t quit,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said of his team after Game 6. “The belief that they have in one another. They just have the ability to bounce back mentally where they don’t hang onto things, right? Quarters don’t bother them. Halves don’t bother them. They just move onto the next play. …
“There’s that built-in trust. There’s no insecurity in our guys’ chemistry.”
Building a championship identity slowly
No insecurity comes from security. And security gets built gradually, like the construction of a solid house, brick by brick. Each game molds you. Each clutch shot molds you. Every turnover you create molds you, every turnover you commit molds you.
And if you’re doing things right, all of that creates an identity.
Think about the championship Pistons teams of the past:
The Bad Boys had Isiah Thomas as playmaker and scorer, Joe Dumars as clutch shooter, Bill Laimbeer and James Edwards as middle enforcers, Dennis Rodman as a rebounding machine and sticky defender and Vinny Johnson as points off the bench.
The Goin’ To Work Pistons had Chauncey Billups as playmaker and big shot, Ben Wallace as madman on the boards and protector of the lane, Rip Hamilton as tireless midrange scorer, Rasheed Wallace as disrupter and 3-point banger and Tayshaun Prince as quiet defender.
Slowly, gradually, this 2026 squad is cementing their own identity – for now and for the future. Cunningham is already one of the biggest two-way stars to dot a Pistons roster. Thompson has taken Rodman’s mantle as a freak defender and athletic force. Duncan Robinson is the mad bomber. Tobias Harris is a steady veteran force. And if Duren plays as he finally did in Game 6, the Pistons have the rim protector and inside presence that is so desperately needed to advance in the NBA postseason.
“When he’s aggressive, nobody can guard him,” Cunningham told the media about Duren on Friday night. “He has all the moves. He’s got the size, he’s got the finishing ability.”
Now we find out if they all do.
It’s Pistons vs. everybody (including themselves)
Only a fool would say he knows how Game 7 will go. Arguing momentum is silly, since the Cavs broke the Pistons’ two-game momentum in Game 3, and the Pistons broke the Cavs’ three-game momentum in Game 6. Homecourt has already been overcome by both squads. And you can’t really talk about postseason experience since, besides Harden on Cleveland and Robinson on Detroit, no starters in this matchup have ever been beyond the second round.
Could the Pistons revert to the sloppy passing, bad spacing and inconsistent defense on 3-point protection that has burned them three times in this series? Yes. Friday night’s solid win is no guarantee against that.
Could Cleveland succeed in getting Donovan Mitchell loose in the middle, where his floating baskets seem impossible to stop and his offensive output is almost limitless? Certainly. Could the Cavs feel less pressure on the road, while the Pistons overanxiously try to live up to the home crowd’s expectations? It happens.
On the other hand, if the Pistons are truly growing, they will have learned what dooms them against this Cleveland group. They’ll know they have to come out fast, and play first-quarter defense the way they’d play fourth-quarter defense. Thompson will know that he can’t pick up meaningless fouls in the name of intensity. Cunningham will know that every pass matters and every turnover breaks momentum. Bickerstaff will know how deep his roster can go and still be productive, reaching down to the eighth and ninth guys on the bench for sparks.
And Duren will know that he is likely the linchpin to all of this, that if he dominates the middle, grabs offensive rebounds, drives the lane and finishes, the Pistons’ chances increase exponentially, as does the likelihood that all his earlier lapses will be forgiven.
“We’re just special,” Jenkins told the media Friday night. “We just want to fight all the odds. We’re not taking nothing from nobody. It’s us against the world.”
Actually, it’s just them against Cleveland, and in some ways, them against themselves. Do what they know they can do, play endless defense, spread around the offense, and they have a good chance to exceed all expectations. Check that. They already have.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
Next up: Game 7
Matchup: 1-seed Pistons (3-3) vs. 4-seed Cavaliers (3-3); NBA playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals Game 7.
Tipoff: 8 p.m. Sunday, May 17; Little Caesars Arena, Detroit.
TV/radio: Prime Video (online only); WWJ-AM (950).
At stake: Winner advances to Eastern Conference finals (which begin Tuesday) vs. 3-seed Knicks; the Pistons are seeking their first East finals since 2008, while the Cavs haven’t been since 2018.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: Pistons’ Game 7 vs Cavaliers already a high-water mark
Reporting by Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
