The top five reasons to still trust the Detroit Pistons this postseason
BEFORE THEIR FINAL house sport of the common season, Detroit Pistons heart Jalen Duren He grabbed a microphone to handle the crowd at Little Caesars Arena. The Pistons have been placing the ending touches on one among the greatest common seasons in franchise historical past: 60 wins and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, whereas finishing the most dramatic two-year turnaround in NBA historical past.
From 14 wins two seasons in the past to 60 wins in 2025-26, the Pistons’ 46-win enchancment is the largest bounce in two seasons in NBA historical past, in accordance to ESPN Research.
Standing in the center of the court docket, Duren known as out to the crowd. “Deeeee-troit basket-ball,” mimicking the staff’s legendary PA announcer, John Mason. Duren thanked the followers for his or her assist throughout the season and in addition supplied a reminder.
“We’re not done yet,” he stated. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
The Pistons claimed the No. 1 seed on Nov. 7 and have sat atop the Eastern Conference standings every single day since. And but they entered the playoffs as an underdog in the convention they dominated. According to DraftKings, the Pistons started the playoffs with the fourth-best odds to win the Eastern Conference (+500), behind the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks. “We think we could win it all,” Pistons ahead Ausar Thompson advised ESPN. “We don’t think about what other people say.
“I really feel like we may beat anyone.”
Detroit’s playoff run got off to a rocky start in Game 1, though, as it fell 112-101 on Sunday to the No. 8-seeded Orlando Magic in a game the Pistons never led.
It was not only the Pistons’ 11th straight home playoff loss, extending the longest streak in NBA history, but it provided fuel to a narrative: that this long-irrelevant franchise, which had made the postseason just three times since 2010, is not deserving of the seed next to its name.
Detroit’s last home playoff win came in Game 4 of the 2008 conference finals when Duren and Thompson were 4 and 5 years old, respectively.
Still, the Pistons have time to make good on Duren’s promise to the home fans, starting with Game 2 against the Magic on Wednesday night (7 pm ET, ESPN).
And there are five reasons to believe that they will.
1. They learned serious lessons after last year’s crushing playoff loss
All-Star point guard Cade Cunningham made a vow shortly after the Pistons’ season ended last year. Detroit had been engaged in a tightly contested series with the Knicks before being eliminated in six games.
Down by three and with a chance to tie the score in the closing seconds of Game 6 in Detroit, Cunningham made a pass to a wide-open Malik Beasley, the team’s best 3-point shooter, but the ball slipped through his hands and out of bounds. The turnover sealed the series and ended Detroit’s first playoff appearance since the 2018-19 campaign.
“That feeling will stick to us all through this summer time in our exercises and conversations,” Cunningham said that night. “We’ll be again and higher.”
So far, Cunningham is 2-for-2.
Duren is, perhaps, the most visible manifestation of that vow. He took two weeks off last offseason before linking up with Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff during the summer for individual work. Doing so led to the best season of his career.
“Honestly, it sort of modified my perspective,” Duren told ESPN. “At first, it was attempting to get there, attempting to get to the membership. Now it is like OK, we all know we’ve a ok staff to get again. Now it is like can we make some noise there?”
Bickerstaff, who is a finalist for Coach of the Year, has heard the adage countless times: Young teams have to experience heartbreak in the early rounds of the playoffs before they can achieve deep playoff runs.
Years of NBA history have reinforced this mantra — Michael Jordan falling to the Bad Boy Pistons; LeBron James‘Various playoff shortcomings before he became a champion; the Oklahoma City Thunder losing in the 2024-25 Western Conference semifinals despite amassing the best record in the league.
Yet these Pistons believe they can defy it.
“We obtained a sense of what it felt like final yr in opposition to the Knicks — a sequence that was extremely contested and one which sort of made us really feel like there was extra on the market to be had,” Bickerstaff said earlier this month. “That fueled what our guys did this summer time and turned it into this yr.”
The veteran coach has led multiple teams to the playoffs in his career, including the Cavaliers. Those Cavaliers teams experienced similar growing pains in Bickerstaff’s early seasons with the franchise. “I do assume expertise issues,” Bickerstaff said.
“Experience for individuals is completely different. In the playoffs particularly, if you end up a younger staff and also you’re dealing with new experiences, it is decided by how shortly you’ll be able to be taught and modify to that have. If in Game 1 you be taught one thing and expertise one thing, in Game 2, are you able to repair it? It would not take you three video games; you are in all probability going to lose that sequence.”
2. The Duren of Sunday’s Game 1…was not the Duren of games 1-82
Even after a disappointing Game 1 loss, Cunningham’s postgame demeanor was steady.
“We’re sick about shedding this one,” he said. “But it is a lengthy sequence. There’s no confidence drop from us.”
Cunningham did his part in Game 1, finishing with a playoff career-high 39 points, along with five rebounds and four assists in 40 minutes. But his lack of a co-star was glaring.
Throughout the regular season, though, Duren had been that co-star, ascending into All-NBA status, alongside another All-Star campaign from Cunningham.
Duren increased his scoring average to 19.5 points this season, a 7.7-point increase that was the seventh largest among players from last year.
“[Duren is] determining how robust he’s on the ground,” Pistons ahead Tobias Harris advised ESPN. “He’s determining methods to make guys higher. And I at all times advised him early on in the yr, your demeanor, your voice, your power is so essential for our complete group, particularly defensively. He’s finished an incredible job simply taking on and determining how good he’s.”
The Pistons are going to need that Duren in Game 2 — something I addressed Tuesday — after the Magic successfully committed their Game 1 defensive scheme to stop him. He had just eight points and seven rebounds.
“The scary factor is he could be a complete lot higher too,” Harris said. “And he is aware of that.”
3. Their bench is experienced — and deep
All five of the Pistons’ starters were injured as the team prepared for a game on Nov. 12 against the Chicago Bulls. If there was going to be a scheduled loss, it would’ve been this one.
It was then, Harris told ESPN, that he sensed a shift in the team’s confidence.
“I bear in mind pregame in the locker room, like, we count on to win this sport,” he said. “That’s simply our mentality — and we have simply been rolling with it.”
Behind a beginning lineup of Daniss Jenkins, Javonte Green, Paul Reed, Ronald Holland II and Duncan Robinsonthe Pistons won by 11, improving to 10-2 on the season that night despite missing Cunningham, Duren, Harris and Thompson.
It set the tone for the remainder of the season, Harris stated. When Cunningham missed 11 video games with a collapsed lung at the finish of the common season, the staff did not miss a beat.
“We all know it’s not one guy,” Duren stated. “It takes the whole team for us to be successful. We understood that from early on. We got a bunch of guys in here who can put the ball in the hole, guard and who all buy into our culture and what we’ve been building.”
Detroit went 13-5 (.722) with out Cunningham this season, the greatest profitable proportion in the league amongst groups enjoying with out their main scorer, in accordance to ESPN Research.
Bickerstaff has one among the deepest benches in the league. Detroit has 10 gamers averaging at the least seven factors and who’ve appeared in 70% of the staff’s video games. The mixture is virtually exceptional in NBA historical past: The Pistons are solely the second staff in league historical past to accomplish that, becoming a member of the 1962-63 Syracuse Nationals.
“If you can get guys to buy in to an identity, to a style, if you can play systematic basketball on both ends of the floor,” Bickerstaff stated, “you can have some success when guys are missing or when guys have to sub in because everybody knows their role, they know their responsibility.”
4. They’ve performed exceedingly properly in the clutch — and so they’ve finished it typically
The Pistons went 27-15 (64.3%) this season in clutch video games, tied for the most clutch wins in the NBA and the fourth-best profitable proportion.
After a clutch win over the Lakers close to the finish of the season, Jenkins defined why.
“We don’t play scared because at the end of the day, we know we play defense,” he stated. “When we get in these tight moments, it’s never a panic.”
The numbers again him up. The Pistons performed the NBA’s second-stingiest protection.
And Detroit was particularly profitable when matching up in opposition to the greatest groups in the league. They went a league-best 30-12 in video games between playoff groups, together with 8-3 in contests in opposition to the top 4 in the East.
5. Elite protection, in and out
From the second Bickerstaff took over as head coach at the begin of the 2024-25 season, he bolstered the traits of a few of the greatest rosters in staff historical past: physicality, toughness and a punishing protection that makes opponents assume twice about going into the paint.
The Pistons have already got one DPOY finalist in Thompson, who hunts on the perimeter.
The mixture of Isaiah Stewart and Duren on the inside has created one among the league’s most formidable combos at the rim, too. As a staff, the Pistons held opponents to simply 54.6% taking pictures throughout the common season, third in the league behind Oklahoma City and Boston — the previous two NBA champions.
“We take super, super pride in it,” Duren advised ESPN. “My job as an anchor of the defense is to hold it down. And I take pride in it because we’re a defense-first mindset team.”
Duren’s chops shine by way of in his pick-and-roll protection. According to GeniusIQ, the Pistons permit 0.92 factors per opponent decide when Duren is concerned, the 14th-best mark in the league.
After final yr’s playoff sequence in opposition to the Knicks and dealing with one among the league’s premier pick-and-roll gamers in Jalen BrunsonDuren dove into movie over the summer time, searching for simpler methods to defend the motion.
“Just learning where I could be better,” Duren advised ESPN. “Watching a lot of film, understanding what my weaknesses were and understanding what my strengths were and kind of just locking in on it.”
Stewart, for his half, held opponents to simply 41.4% taking pictures when he was the closest defender, in accordance to GeniusIQ, third amongst gamers who defended at the least 500 discipline targets this season (behind Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Boston’s Derrick White).
In the paint particularly, Stewart held opponents to 43.8% taking pictures, the lowest discipline objective proportion amongst certified gamers in the league.
