Cade Cunningham gets no help in Pistons loss to Bulls: 3 takeaways

The Detroit Pistons lost their 11th straight game to the Chicago Bulls on a night Cade Cunningham didn’t get much help from anyone, including himself.

Cade had 22 points, six assists and four rebounds on the night, but he also committed six turnovers, several of them of the unforced variety, which did not help his team’s cause.

His teammates did little to chip in, as no one else on the Pistons scored more than 12 points even though they shot the ball well as a team and did have seven players in double figures overall.

In the end, it was too much DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine, who took over in the 4th quarter after the Pistons had won the previous three.

This feels like the Detroit Pistons in a nutshell, as they are about 75 percent of a good team, but still not quite able to put together a good game from end to end most nights.

This team isn’t tanking, but the loss did help their case a little, as both Orlando and Houston won last night, the only bright side to losing.

Here are three takeaways from the Pistons’ loss to the Bulls.

Detroit Pistons: 3-pointers and free throws

For once, the Pistons won the 3-point battle, hitting 11-of-31 for 35 percent as a team, which is about as good as it gets for one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the NBA.

The Bulls hit just 3-of-15 for 20 percent, but the Bulls have been proving all season that you don’t need to hit a ton of 3-point shots to be good.

The Bulls are second in the NBA in 3-point percentage but dead last in attempts, showing that it is not always the quantity but the quality of the shot.

The Bulls make up for it at the line, where they are the 3rd-best free-throw shooting team in the league. The Pistons won the 3-point battle, but the Bulls got it back with freebies, hitting 31-of-35 free throws while the Pistons hit just 13-of-17 from the line.

That pretty much wiped out the Pistons’ 3-point advantage and the Pistons helped them make up the rest.