The Detroit Pistons came into their first-round series with the Magic like a team that thought they could cruise to the second round, but Orlando had other ideas.
As Daniss Jenkins said, the Magic came out and “punched the Pistons in the mouth,” taking a 3-1 lead in the series behind a tough defense that was giving Detroit nightmares.
The Magic are big and physical, and that physicality made everything difficult for the Pistons, who had to come back from a 25-point deficit and stave off elimination three times just to get to the second round.
But it’s the best thing that ever happened to them.
The Pistons woke up against Orlando
Detroit is up 2-0 against the Cavaliers, and though this series is FAR from over, the Pistons are the team still playing like their backs are against the wall, and that’s because of the lessons they learned from Orlando.
The Pistons figured out (finally) that you can’t coast in the playoffs and have to play each and every possession like it’s your last.
Cleveland has a very good defense too, but don’t play with the same physicality as the Magic, so the Pistons are getting much better looks against the Cavaliers, whose perimeter defense is not close to Orlando’s.
The Pistons turned up their intensity starting in game five against the Magic and haven’t turned it off because they weren’t able to.
If they had coasted to an easy win over the Magic in the first round, we may have seen those same lackadaisical Pistons turn up for game one against Cleveland, but instead we’ve seen a much sharper and more focused team that has locked in on defense.
They are also taking much better care of the ball, which started in game six of the Magic series. Detroit averaged nearly 17 turnovers per game against Orlando but have only coughed it up 10.5 times per game in the first two against Cleveland.
The Pistons usually lose the 3-point battle (though that wasn’t the case in game 2), so they have to value possessions by not turning the ball over and by not giving up copious offensive rebounds.
This group of Pistons had never entered a playoff series as the favorite and there is a learning curve to that, as it’s much different than being the scrappy underdog no one believes in. You are the team that suddenly has a bullseye on it, which the Pistons did not handle well in the first four games of the playoffs.
I give the Magic a lot of credit, as they might have pulled off the upset if they had been healthy, but either way, they sharpened the Pistons and prepared them for Cleveland, so cheers to Orlando.
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