{"id":321811,"date":"2026-04-20T19:26:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=321811"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:26:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:56:46","slug":"pistons-open-playoffs-with-a-flop-as-east-top-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/pistons-open-playoffs-with-a-flop-as-east-top-seed\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons open playoffs with a flop as East top seed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cade Cunningham (2), de los Pistons de Detroit, discute una acci\u00f3n con el entrenador del equipo, J.B. Bickerstaff, izquierda, durante la primera mitad del juego 1 de la serie de postemporada de la NBA de primera ronda, el domingo 19 de abril de 2026, en Detroit. (AP Foto\/Duane Burleson)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

DETROIT \u2014 The Detroit Pistons opened the NBA playoffs with a flop.<\/p>\n

Detroit went into the postseason because the top-seeded team within the Eastern Conference, openly talking about exceeding modest expectations and winning the franchise\u2019s fourth championship.<\/p>\n

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If the Pistons don\u2019t play higher than they did in a 112-101 loss to Orlando on Sunday night in Game 1, they may get knocked out in the primary round again.<\/p>\n

READ: NBA: Paolo Banchero leads Magic upset of Pistons in Game 1<\/h4>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sick about losing this one,\u201d Cade Cunningham said after scoring a playoff career-high 39 points and never getting much help from his teammates. \u201cIt\u2019s an extended series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit, which has lost an NBA-record 11 straight home postseason games, hosts the Magic again on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The Pistons haven’t won a house playoff game since 2008, which can also be the last yr they advanced within the playoffs.<\/p>\n

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They were sluggish early against the Magic and had a built-in excuse, playing for the primary time in every week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t come out with the appropriate energy,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n

READ: NBA: Pistons clinch top seed in Eastern Conference<\/h4>\n

They were flat early within the third quarter, too, and that\u2019s tougher to elucidate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe were chasing all of them night,\u201d coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. \u201cWe made some runs to get ourselves back within the ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic, meanwhile, looked able to play just two nights after routing Charlotte in an elimination game to earn a spot within the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been off and we\u2019ve found just a little little bit of a rhythm,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cThat all the time plays an element in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit never had the lead.<\/p>\n

READ: NBA: Detroit Pistons end long stretch of futility<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cunningham made a 3-pointer to drag the Pistons right into a tie midway through the third quarter, but they wasted the chance by giving up 14 of the subsequent 17 points and couldn\u2019t get well.<\/p>\n

Detroit finished with a season-low 31 baskets, connecting on just 40% of its shots. Tobias Harris scored 17 points because the only double-digit scorer aside from Cunningham, but he missed 10 of 15 shots.<\/p>\n

All-Star Jalen Duren, who averaged nearly 20 points within the regular season, was limited to 4 shots and eight points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey packed the paint,\u201d Bickerstaff said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to place a bunch of bodies within the paint to attempt to make it difficult on him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Cade Cunningham (2), de los Pistons de Detroit, discute una acci\u00f3n con el entrenador del equipo, J.B. Bickerstaff, izquierda, durante la primera mitad del juego 1 de la serie de postemporada de la NBA de primera ronda, el domingo 19 de abril de 2026, en Detroit. (AP Foto\/Duane Burleson) DETROIT \u2014 The Detroit Pistons opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[17667,14930,1574,965,2751,1720,1111],"class_list":["post-321811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-east","tag-flop","tag-open","tag-pistons","tag-playoffs","tag-seed","tag-top"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321814,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321811\/revisions\/321814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}