Pistons clinch first division title in 18 years with win
DETROIT — After practically twenty years, and stretches of futility, the Pistons have received the Central Division once more.
The Pistons defeated the Toronto Raptors (*18*) on Tuesday to complete an extended climb again up the NBA ladder and clinch their first division title for the reason that 2007-08 season.
“You take pride in understanding how hard it is to do these things in this league,” Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff stated after the sport. “You take pride in the fact that you have a group of young men who have grown and achieved certain milestones.
“It’s part of the method, and we count on extra.”
Two years after going 14-68 and losing a league-record-tying 28 straight games, the Pistons are 55-21 with two All-Stars in Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren. With Cunningham sidelined by a lung injury, Duren had 31 points on 12-of-13 shooting and added nine rebounds against the Raptors.
“He’s so gifted,” Bickerstaff said. “He’s a unique form of huge that you simply see in the NBA. You have space-up bigs and post-up bigs, however when you will have somebody who can do each, he is an issue for individuals.”
Daniss Jenkinswho started the season on a two-way contract, had 21 points and five assists. He is averaging 18.6 points and 6.9 assists per game since replacing Cunningham as the starting point guard.
“We knew we have been making an attempt to do one thing particular this 12 months,” he said. “It’s nice to perform one thing like this, however now we have our eyes on the playoffs and performing some injury there. We’ll have a good time this tonight and get again to work tomorrow.”
They have helped end one of the worst periods in franchise history.
In 2007-08, the Pistons were still running out most of the same players who had led them to the 2004 championship and a seven-game Finals loss to the San Antonio Spurs a year later. They went 59-23 under coach Flip Saunders then knocked out Philadelphia and orlando on their way to the last of their six straight Eastern Conference final appearances.
They didn’t know it, but they were about to go off a cliff.
The following offseason, team president Joe Dumars traded Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson and replaced Saunders with Michael Curry.
The Pistons went 39-43 and spent the next 10 seasons cycling through eight coaches with zero postseason victories.
That was followed by one of the worst five-year stretches in NBA history as the Pistons went 94-290 (.245) and hit rock bottom in 2023-24, when they lost a franchise-record 68 games.
Last season, Cunningham and Duren led the Pistons to a 30-win improvement before they fell in six games to the New York Knicks in the first spherical of the playoffs.
