The Detroit Pistons won their third straight elimination game, ending the Magic's season for their first playoff series win in 18 years. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted after the Pistons were pushed to the brink by an eight seed after winning 60 games this season. There has been plenty of criticism, even in the wins, and some of the guys who heard it the loudest came up big in game seven.
Cade Cunningham is a superstar
Cunningham has gotten his deserved credit in this series but was also taking plenty of criticism after his turnover frenzy in the first three games.
He's been outstanding since, especially in these last three elimination games, puntuated by his 32 points, 12 assist performance tonight. Cunningham played outstanding defense in the critical comeback in game six and saved the Pistons season about a hundred times in the series with clutch shots.
He's a superstar who is playing like a first team All-NBA player on the big stage.
Jalen Duren finally had a good game
Duren looked more like himself tonight and finally did the thing I've been begging for all series, which is assert himself on the glass. Duren had 15 boards to go along with 15 points for his first double double of the playoffs.
Hopefully, it's a sign of things to come for Duren.
Tobias Harris saved the Pistons
Harris was arguably the most consistent player in the whole series on either team and put an exclamation point on it tonight with 30 points.
The talk of who the second scorer is has dominated the season but Harris absolutely was that guy in this series. He also played solid defense and was all over the boards.
I'm done with the Harris slander and all the talk about his playoff shortcomings, as he was amazing against the Magic and is a big reason the Pistons didn't get eliminated. He averaged 21.6 points and over eight rebounds a game, which will hopefully silence the annoying haters who haven't paid attention to reality.
Daniss Jenkins finally broke through
Jenkins had a tough series shooting the ball, but up until Javonte Green made a 3-pointer late in the game, he was the only Pistons' bench player to score.
Jenkins picked a good night to have his best game, with 16 points and five assists, and the Pistnos will need plenty of that going forward.
It certainly wasn't a thing of beauty offensively, but the Pistons survived, which is all the matters, Hats off to the Magic, who played a tough and competitive series and gave Detroit everything they wanted.
Detroit now has that first round monkey off their backs, and it was some of their most criticized players who came up the biggest.
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