Duren with career-high six blocks in victory
The Detroit Pistons survived a season-high 27 turnovers, some lethargic play, a third-quarter collapse, and a Malik Beasley ejection in a 115-94 win over the Brooklyn Nets .
It was Exhibit A in how deceiving box scores can be. You look at a 21-point win in a game where you hold an opponent to 30% shooting and 15% from deep and think the Pistons must be pretty happy with their performance.
However, I imagine both teams will want to wash the stink of this game off of themselves and move on. Detroit took a 23-point lead into halftime but allowed the Nets to get within six points before the third quarter was over.
The biggest culprit was the team again struggling to navigate when all of the attention was focused on Cade Cunningham, who had a relatively quiet night until a nice run to put the game away in the fourth quarter. There were also issues with turnovers, allowing the Nets to never feel out of the game. When Detroit started bricking shots and not bothering to create good offense, you could feel the Nets’ energy level and confidence pick up.
Of course, a Nets team that can go down 23 points early is liable to give up another huge run, which is exactly what happened in the fourth quarter. The game was chippy throughout, and there were some questionable calls going both ways. You could feel the refs trying to get control of the game with a quick whistle, which only made the players even more upset.
There was a truly absurd offensive foul call on Cade Cunningham when a defender played so close that he smacked his head into Cade’s shoulder. The impact forced the defender’s head back and a fall (or flop) to the ground. The whistle went against Cade, and it seemed to finally fire up the player and the crowd enough to lock in and put the game away.
The game needed to get a bit out of control for the Pistons to wake up and take control.
When the whistle was called, the Nets were able to convert on the next possession and trim the lead to seven with 9:24 to play. An angry Cunningham, knowing he was liable to earn a quick whistle or a makeup call, aggressively took the ball to the rim on the next possession and converted over DayRon Sharpe for an and-one.
The teams traded baskets for a bit until a Cunningham corner three from a nifty Ausar Thompson pass put the Pistons up 11. Detroit then got another and-one for Jalen Duren after a good defensive stop, and the crowd was fired up. Malik Beasley took the opportunity to go into the teeth of Brooklyn’s bench and talk trash. It earned Beasley his second technical foul, and he was tossed.
Duren made the subsequent free throw to put Detroit up 14 and the game felt firmly back in the control of the Pistons. Duren was one of three Pistons to score 18 points on the night, but he is the only one you could confidently say had a good game. He played strong defense, which was especially needed on a night when Isaiah Stewart struggled massively on both ends of the floor. Duren had a career-high six blocks on the night to go with two steals and 11 boards while shooting 6-of-7 from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the line. Cunningham and Beasley also had 18 points for the Pistons.
The Pistons had 15 blocks as a team. Some of that is attributable to playing hard, but an even larger portion is because Brooklyn took some seriously ill-advised shots near the rim tonight. Detroit was also able to capitalize on Brooklyn’s overall sloppy play to the tune of 36 fastbreak points.
The Nets were led by 23 points off the bench from Tyrese Martin. Former Piston Killian Hayes started for Brooklyn but scored just four points on 1-of-6 shooting in 26 minutes.
The game was not one of Detroit’s best, but it was a solid bounce back a night after seeing their eight-game win streak end in lopsided fashion against the Denver Nuggets. It was also Detroit’s fifth game in seven nights. The Pistons will now embark on a crucial four-game road trip out west. They will begin the trip with a visit to Utah before going to the coast to face the Clippers, Warriors and Trail Blazers.