The Detroit Pistons came into TD Garden as losers of eight straight against the Boston Celtics on their home floor. But these Pistons aren’t the Pistons of that nearly five-year stretch. Tonight, Cade
Cunningham and a cadre of bench players powered the Pistons to a 112-105 run.
Cunningham had everything working against the Celtics, including his not-usually-reliable three-ball. Cunningham had 32 points, 10 assists, and four rebounds, and hit six of his 10 three-point attempts.
If not Cunningham, the big stars of this game were Detroit’s bench players. They combined for 47 points to just 14 for Boston. Isaiah Stewart delivered stout paint defense on a night when Jalen Duren was off, Caris LeVert and Javonte Green combined for 21 points on 14 shots, Ron Holland caused havoc, and Jaden Ivey played well when Detroit relied on him to spell Cunningham, who struggled with fouls, during critical stretches.
As predicted in the game thread, the game was going to be defined by what the Celtics could do from the three-point line. It didn’t start out pretty.
Boston hit five of its first 11 attempts and led by as many as 12 early in the second quarter. The hit five attempts the remainder of the game, missing 28. The Pistons not only won the three-point battle (36% to 25%), they won the turnover battle (10 to 12), on the boards (59 to 49), and second-chance points (16 to eight).
Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 34 points. He got to the line 14 times (to just four for Cade, but I digress), but he missed seven free throws, including a couple of critical ones in the fourth quarter when the game was in question.
Derrick White scored 31 points, and he really had his floater game going against Detroit. He hit a couple late threes, trying to will the Celtics back into the game, but it was too little, too late. Besides those two, who are capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor, the Celtics had a grand total of 17 two-point basket attempts. Five from rim-running big man Neemias Queta, six from Payton Pritchard, and four from Anfernee Simons.
Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, Josh Minott, Sam Hauser, and Baylor Scheierman played 63 combined minutes and had two two-point attempts. They were a combined 2-of-9 from three.
The Pistons move their record to 21-5, and their next six games are against the Mavericks, Hornets, Blazers, Kings, Jazz, and Clippers.
