Detroit ― It was not the game Indigo Zuri of Detroit hoped to see when she was first in line Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena.
“Everybody was smiling and happy” before the Detroit Pistons playoff game against the Orlando Magic, Zuri said. “Now everyone’s like, ‘Ugh, what happened?'”
Fans had several answers to that question after the 112-101 Game 1 loss to Orlando.
“Orlando sat ’em down,” said Drew Rives of Grand Blanc. He wasn’t worried, though.
“They’re gonna come back,” Rives said.
“Disappointing,” said Dustin Adam of Lake Orion, adding he wasn’t concerned either. “We’ll win the series, but it’s a poor showing.”
The loss further extended the team’s run of home playoff losses.
Fans had been hoping to witness the Pistons’ first home playoff victory since the team won Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, 94-75, over the Boston Celtics, on May 26, 2008. The Pistons went on to lose the Boston series.
The team has since lost three opening-round playoff series without a victory (Cleveland Cavaliers 2009, Cleveland Cavaliers 2016 and Milwaukee Bucks 2019), while winning two games on the road against the New York Knicks last season before losing the series 4-2 without a home victory.
11-year-old Kenden Taylor of Toledo had summed up in one word before the game what a Detroit Pistons playoff game win would mean.
“Everything,” Kenden said.
Fans showed up early to hang out outside of Little Caesars Arena despite the cold temperatures just to have somewhere to be excited ahead of the game.
Zuri was at both of the team’s playoff losses last year. She was sure ahead of this game, they were going to win.
“I was here last year,” Zuri said. “I was so sad, I cried.”
Jake Reid of West Bloomfield also watched both losses last year and Sunday’s loss to the Magic.
“Maybe it’s me,” he said, joking. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel good, that’s for sure.”
Reid said the Pistons needed to wake up a bit after more than a week off. He pondered the possibility the No. 1 seed had not taken the No. 8 seed seriously.
“We just thought we were going to mosey our way to a win,” he said.
Cameron Heck of Westland said it was too soon to panic, but that the Pistons were clearly rusty after so much time off.
“It’s only Game 1,” he said.
The mother-daughter team of Susan Jenkin and Morgan Riddle were so confident the game would be good, they flew in from the Seattle area to see it.
Jenkin used to live in Michigan, she said, in Ypsilanti and the Upper Peninsula. Naturally, her daughter grew up a Pistons fan, despite never living here.
“I inherited the Michigan,” Riddle said.
They had seen the team on the road this year in Portland, but had to make the trip to Detroit for the playoffs.
Riddle said she already was looking ahead.
“I see us easily going to the Eastern Conference Finals,” she said.
Being the No. 1 seed, after all, comes with high expectations.
“I think it puts pressure on us, but we do really well when we have pressure on us,” Riddle said.
The key to victory, her mother said — “determination.”
Several fans were succinct in their keys to the game ahead of tip-off, reflecting a just-get-it-done attitude.
John Talos of Chesterfield said Pistons center Jalen Duren needed to have a good game for the team to win. Duren ended the game with just 8 points in 33 minutes.
Talos brought his 7-year-old son, John, to the game, expecting he might “be going in a little late” to school in the morning, but it would be worth it.
“Just seemed like an opportunity to take the little guy to his first playoff game,” Talos said.
Kenden missed a soccer game to come with his family to his first playoff game, but it was worth it, he said.
“They weren’t going to let me let them miss it,” dad Kenny Taylor said. The family, including mom, Thai, and Karson, 9, drove up from Toledo.
“Hopefully we’ll be back for the championship,” Taylor said.
jpignolet@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Detroit Pistons fans react to loss Sunday: ‘Disappointing’ and ‘rusty’
Reporting by Jennifer Pignolet, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
