There is no way to sugarcoat it: Last night was a bad loss for the Detroit Pistons.
They let the league-worst Wizards hang around, toyed with them for too long, and learned a painful lesson about never overlooking an opponent.
Fair play to the Wizards, who played hard all night, refused to back down and responded every time it looked like the Pistons might put them away.
Coach JB Bickerstaff will not be happy with his team’s defensive effort, as they were step slow all night and allowed the Wizards to hit 20 shots from long range, many of them uncontested.
The Pistons were only able to hit 10-of-30 from 3-point range, which was the difference in the game.
This was headlined by Cade Cunningham, who missed all seven of his shots from long range and had a tough night shooting overall.
He finished with 38 points and 10 assists but I’m sure he’d be the first to say that it wasn’t his best night.
But when your off night results in 38 points, something must have gone right, which was the one bright spot in a damaging night, as the Pistons had a chance to bypass Indiana in the standings but instead lost ground to both them and the Bucks with the Hawks (winners of four straight) starting to creep.
Cade Cunningham got a superstar whistle
Cunningham was able to put up the big counting stats because he went 20-of-21 from the free throw line, the most attempts by a Pistons player since Blake Griffin shot 20 back in 2018.
The refs clearly had an agenda to keep the game civil and reduce the physicality after the two teams got into some heated discussions and light shoving in the game on Tuesday. It led to a disjointed game with a lot of fouls.
We’ve talked all season about the lack of whistles for Cade, but that wasn’t the case last night, as he was finally getting calls on the some of the slaps and bumps we’ve seen go uncalled all season.
That’s what superstars do when the shots aren’t falling, they keep pressing and try to make up the difference at the line, which is what Cade did last night and it was good to see him rewarded, something we hope continues for the rest of the season.
But it wasn’t enough last night, and the Pistons let one slip away that may come back to haunt them.
Detroit Pistons schedule
The Pistons have OKC coming into town tomorrow, and it doesn’t get much easier after that, as the Pistons will play 12 of their final 15 games against teams that are at least headed to the play-in tournament.
They have two against the Thunder, one more against the Cavaliers, and will face the Timberwolves, Grizzlies and Knicks before finishing the season with two against the Bucks.
With Atlanta creeping up behind them, last night was the worst possible time to lose against the worst team in the league. Taking care of business against the bad teams was one of my keys to the post All-Star run, and up until last night, the Pistons had nailed the assignment.
But the Pistons have responded to adversity all season and should be focused heading into the home stretch, so still very much control their own destiny when it comes to making the playoffs.