INDIANAPOLIS — Simply two years in the past, the Detroit Pistons set an NBA report for consecutive losses in a single NBA season with 28. Now, they seemingly cannot lose.
The Pistons tied a crew report Monday evening with their thirteenth straight victory, beating the Indiana Pacers 122-117. Detroit matched the successful streaks of its 1990 and 2004 NBA championship groups and improved to 15-2.
“It is superb,” Pistons star Cade Cunningham mentioned. “We play for the Detroit Pistons, man. A historic franchise. So, to have the ability to make historical past for a historic franchise like this — it is particular.”
It is a beautiful turnaround for a franchise that began the 2023-24 season with a 3-36 report and completed with 14 wins.
The Pistons have an opportunity to surpass all the nice Detroit groups, together with the “Dangerous Boys” from again within the day. And it is solely becoming that these Pistons, like these outdated Isiah Thomas-led groups, can have Boston standing in the way in which of reaching a big purpose. Detroit visits the Celtics on Wednesday evening in an NBA Cup recreation.
Detroit needed to get by one other longtime rival, the scrappy, injury-plagued Pacers on Monday, to match the report. Indiana confirmed the toughness of a crew that performed within the NBA Finals just some months in the past, however nonetheless fell to 2-15.
Cunningham, the previous No. 1 decide, has spearheaded Detroit’s run to the highest of the Jap Convention standings. He had 24 factors, 11 rebounds and 6 assists Monday evening. Jalen Duren, one of many league’s high rebounders this season, had 17 factors and 12 rebounds, and Caris LeVert added 19 factors.
Jaden Ivey returned Saturday to the Pistons’ already harmful crew. The fifth decide within the 2022 draft had been out since breaking his fibula in January. He scored 12 factors towards the Pacers on Monday, enjoying simply 12 minutes due to a minutes restriction.
Nonetheless, Cunningham did not just like the Pistons practically squandering an 18-point lead within the fourth quarter.
“We should not have allowed them to get again into the sport like that,” he mentioned. “So watch the movie, be sick concerning the movie, however work from it, study from it and get higher.”