NBA playoffs 2026: How Daniss Jenkins helped save Detroit’s 1-seed
Even in the event you did not know the identify, the shot — and the sneer — had been evident.
Daniss Jenkinsthe generously listed 6-foot-4 guard who did not signal a typical NBA contract with the Detroit Pistons till February, he had simply crushed the third-quarter horn with a 3-pointer to push the result in 19 factors in Sunday’s Game 7 towards the Orlando Magic.
It did not matter who was in his eyesight — random followers within the crowd, his teammates, assistant coaches — all of them caught his mouth twisted sideways, feeling the emotion of the second because the Pistons had been finishing a comeback from being down 3-1 to win their first playoff series since 2008.
“There’s two things about him,” a Pistons assistant coach informed ESPN. “He works hard and he talks s—.”
But if Jenkins’ play and fervour all through this postseason have been met with a collective “who’s this guy?” response, it should not. The 24-year-old former G League call-up has been a key determine all season throughout Detroit’s rise to the Eastern Conference high seed.
In truth, the Pistons may not have held on with out him.
When high scorer and MVP candidate Cade Cunningham missed three weeks in March and April with a punctured lung, Jenkins averaged 18.6 factors and seven.6 assists with a forty five% clip from 3 in to 12-game span. The Pistons went 9-3 and clinched the franchise’s first No. 1 seed since 2007 with Jenkins working a lot of the offense.
“The stuff I’ve been doing here, I’ve always been doing it,” Jenkins informed ESPN after dropping 16 points and 14 assists in an April 4 win over the Philadelphia 76ers that secured the convention’s finest document.
“It wasn’t like waiting ’til I got here [and] ’till they let me shine.”
The Dallas native was a journeyman collegian, leaving the University of the Pacific when coach Damon Stoudamire left to hitch Ime Udoka’s Boston Celtics workers in 2021. Jenkins led the Tigers in scoring as a sophomore.
He went the juco route, the place his 15 factors and 5.3 assists averages for Odessa College caught Rick Pitino’s eye at Iona. Jenkins repeated the manufacturing there, incomes All-MAAC second-team honors. And when Pitino returned to the Big East, Jenkins adopted him to St. John’s. There, I made the Big East second staff.
None of it, not even the waves he made throughout 2024 predraft exercises, resulted in a name within the second spherical. Jenkins made his approach to the G League’s Motor City Cruise, averaging 21 factors and 7 assists and showing in a handful of mop-up duties for the massive membership. But when the Pistons began the 2025-26 season quick on guard depth after Jaden Ivey’s leg damage, they introduced up Jenkins — and shortly found how prepared he was for the second.
“I got excited, I thought it was sweet.”
Charles Barkley heard “Danish” as a substitute of Daniss Jenkins 😭 pic.twitter.com/glCdMaLKpO
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 3, 2026
“After I met him and I knew him for a year? That’s when I knew he’d have no problem adjusting,” mentioned Pistons wing Ausar Thompsonwho first met Jenkins whereas taking part in for Detroit’s’ summer season league staff in 2024. Thompson recalled his first impressions of Jenkins being “super vocal, super competitive, and he was cold.”
“He’d be fine on this team. One thousand percent. Everyone on this team knew.”
Jenkins has turn into nearly indispensable to the Pistons’ pursuit of the franchise’s first Finals look since 2005, incomes sufficient belief from Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff to hold the playmaking load when Cunningham sits and get essential fourth-quarter playoff minutes alongside the Pistons’ chief.
“I think it’s beneficial to not have Cade always be the guy that five guys are staring at,” Bickerstaff informed reporters after the Pistons clinched the East’s high seed.
“To start possessions, if you can put him in the corner some, you can move him around a little bit, put them on the elbows, and then you got [Jenkins] who can initiate the offense still and get the ball to him.”
Bickerstaff had Cunningham and Jenkins on the ground to assist shut Game 1 of the East semifinals towards the Cleveland Cavaliersthe place the guard immediately hounded Cleveland’s guards after they made a late cost.
The unwavering confidence has by no means been shaken, and Jenkins credit his religion and the aforementioned work teammates and coaches witness him placing in.
“I’ve been in every room you could think of,” Jenkins mentioned. “I’ve been the energy guy, the defensive guy. The good teammate.”
The loud teammate.
That in fact did not cease when the excitement from a shock burst started to fizzle proper after his contract was transformed after the commerce deadline, as if his starvation had been glad with affirmation of a assured deal.
“That’s been my whole life. I grew up in Texas, that’s just my mentality,” Jenkins mentioned about his edge, and the dialogue cameras will typically catch throughout video games. Usually, the dialogue he is having is inner, with himself, Kevin Garnett-style.
“We can go at it, but for the most part I’m just talking to myself.”
The Pistons, in the meantime, spoke with their roster strikes, buying and selling Ivey earlier than the deadline as a vote of confidence that Jenkins may handle an elevated workload behind Cunningham. But between Feb. 9 and March 13, Jenkins shot simply 32% and averaged 5.9 factors as he adjusted to a brand new function.
“Let’s get through [the struggle],” Jenkins mentioned of that 15-game stretch. “And for me, I wasn’t going to shy away from anything that came with it, because I couldn’t. It was all people wanted to talk about with me, it’s a great story.”
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than he discovered his edge once more. Since the run he helped orchestrate in Cunningham’s damage absence, and after some struggles early within the first spherical, Jenkins has seemed just like the ornery, assured participant who reveals up when the sport wants a jolt.
He scored 16 factors in Game 7 towards Orlando and adopted it with 12 factors and 7 rebounds — together with an enormous fourth-quarter offensive board over former Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley — in Detroit’s Game 1 win towards Cleveland.
“He’s been through adversity in every step,” Thompson mentioned. “He learned how to lead teams. And when he got to the league, he wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to take a step to the side.’ …
“That’s why I’m so, so, so completely happy for him. He works his ass off.”
