Jokic masterful, Murray scorching while Cade struggles
The Detroit Pistons had their eight-game winning streak snapped in an 134-119 loss to the Denver Nuggets at a sold-out Little Caesar Arena on Friday. Cade Cunningham struggled with the Nuggets outsized defensive attention, finishing with 11 points and four assists.
Denver’s pair of stars, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray had no such trouble. If the game managed to stay close, Nikola Jokic would have flirted with a 20-20-20 triple-double. Instead, he finished with 23 points, 17, rebounds, and 15 assists. Murray had a game-high 31 points and abused Detroit with a mix of elbow jumpers and above-the-break three-pointers.
The Nuggets defensive game plan was to focus three (or more) defenders on Cunningham, and it forced Cade to defer for most of the first 2.5 quarters. He didn’t have a field goal in the first half and was limited to three points.
At the same time, the Nuggets were blistering hot from deep. Denver finished 17-of-31 from three. While their stars played at an elite level, Denver also got a big boost from its secondary players as well. Christian Braun feasted on the attention Detroit paid to Jokic and found several cutting lanes for easy hoops. When he wasn’t hitting bunnies, he was using some burst and elite body control to finish in the lane through traffic. He scored 23 points on 10-of-14 from the floor. Michael Porter Jr was 6-of-7 from deep and 10-of-15 overall on his way to 26 points.
There was simply nothing the Pistons could do to stop Denver tonight or to solve their defensive attention they were putting on Cade.
Early, it seemed like Detroit had plenty of fight in them. When the Nuggets burst out to an early 18-point lead, the Pistons were able to cut it to one before halftime.
Having fight is not the same as having answers, however, and the game fell away by the midpoint of the third quarter when Denver was able to stretch the lead to 25.
The Pistons will have to lick their wounds and get locked back in as they play the Brooklyn Nets tomorrow for what will be their fifth game in seven nights.