A Sense of Doubt blog post #4068 - Detroit Pistons CLINCH both Central Division and the Number One Seed in the Eastern Conference
Cade Cunningham returned from the injured list last night (Wednesday, the day after this post is published) and the Pistons won decisively over the Bucks after a crushing loss to the Magic on Monday.
DETROIT BASKETBALL!!!
Pistons clinch first division title in 18 years with win
DETROIT -- After nearly two decades, and stretches of futility, the Pistons have won the Central Division again.
The Pistons defeated the Toronto Raptors 127-116 on Tuesday to finish a long climb back up the NBA ladder and clinch their first division title since the 2007-08 season.
"You take pride in understanding how hard it is to do these things in this league," Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after the game. "You take pride in the fact that you have a group of young men who have grown and achieved certain milestones.
"It's a part of the process, and we expect more."
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 talented," Bickerstaff said. "He's a different kind of big that you see in the NBA. You have space-up bigs and post-up bigs, but when you have somebody who can do both, he's a problem for people."
Daniss Jenkins, who 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 were trying to do something special this year," he said. "It's great to accomplish something like this, but we have our eyes on the playoffs and doing some damage there. We'll celebrate this tonight and get back 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 finals 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 round of the playoffs.
How Detroit Pistons secured 1-seed and best season in 20 years
https://www.freep.com/videos/sports/nba/pistons/2026/04/05/detroit-pistons-nba/89473515007/
Pistons clinch 1-seed in latest team-ball masterclass to crush 76ers
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2026/04/04/pistons-game-score-76ers-recap/89471782007/
PHILADELPHIA – The Detroit Pistons are the top team in the East – officially.
They clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 116-93 blowout win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday, April 4, at Xfinity Mobile Arena. It's their first No. 1 seed since 2007.
Despite Cade Cunningham missing his 10th straight game with a collapsed left lung, the Pistons (57-21) held the Sixers to 12 points in the fourth quarter on 5-for-20 shooting, and 33 points in the second half in yet another strong defensive performance.
The Pistons pulled away with a 37-16 run that turned a game tied at 56 into a 93-72 blowout late in the third quarter. They were led by Tobias Harris (19 points, four steals) and Daniss Jenkins (16 points, 14 assists). Jalen Duren also scored 16 points with seven rebounds.
As a team, the Pistons shot 49.4% overall and dished 33 assists to 11 turnovers.
The 76ers (43-35) dropped to seventh in the East, and were without Joel Embiid on the second night of a back-to-back after beating Minnesota on Friday.
Pistons clinch No. 1 seed in East
The last time the Pistons clinched the East was in 2006-07, a season they finished with 53 wins and fell in six games to 22-year-old LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. The Pistons have been the top team in the conference since December, and have had a sizable lead over the No. 2 team through most of the season since. They lead the 2-seed Boston Celtics (52-25) by 4½ games.
The Pistons will have home-court advantage through all three rounds of the East playoffs.
The NBA playoffs begin April 18. With four games remaining, the last milestone remaining for the Pistons is the 60-win threshold.
Daniss Jenkins finding consistency as a starter
Prior to Cunningham’s injury, Jenkins endured the worst stretch of his young career averaging 6.6 points on 35.5% overall shooting and 25.8% from 3 over a 16-game stretch from Feb. 6 through March 15. It was just a blip, and he has been one of the Pistons’ top players as they close the season on a tear.
He explained to our Shawn Windsor on March 23 after a game-winner against the Los Angeles Lakers what changed during that stretch and how he pulled himself out of it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2604.07 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3932 days ago & DAD = 586 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
No comments:
Post a Comment