Nine days ago, the Pistons were down 1-3 in their first-round series against the eighth-seeded Magic, on the verge of a bitter exit despite an impressive 60-win regular season. The narrative was already forming: would the season be remembered as a failure if they couldn’t win a playoff series for the first time since 2008? The Magic, one of the few teams capable of matching Detroit’s physicality, had Franz Wagner using his size to overwhelm Cade Cunningham, the Pistons’ cornerstone. But the best team in the Eastern Conference wasn’t finished. Wagner’s injury certainly helped, and the Magic’s historic collapse in Game 6 seemed like a collective intervention from the basketball gods. Whatever the reason, the Pistons started winning, and that fueled their growth. They rediscovered themselves, survived, and have now strung together five consecutive wins—from that nightmarish 1-3 to a 2-0 lead in the semifinals against the Cavaliers after a 107-97 victory tonight. For the first time since 2008 (a long, dark valley followed), the Pistons are up 2-0, two wins away from the Eastern Conference Finals. Back then, they beat the Magic 4-1. What now? We’ll see. They look better than the Cavs, and in fact, they are better. But they just learned firsthand how quickly a playoff series can shift. This one has only begun; the middle and the end remain. Still, things look very promising for Detroit.
And very grim for the Cavaliers, who are 0-4 on the road in these playoffs and now 4-13 overall with Donovan Mitchell on the roster (this is their fourth playoff run). That’s telling, as it’s a good measure of a team’s true size and aspirations. That said, this is a bad day to point fingers at Mitchell. He dragged his team back into the game after another terrible start, using his mid-range game and taking responsibility against a suffocating defense to open a window of opportunity—only for it to slam shut due to a collective blackout at the worst moment. Mitchell finished with 31 hard-earned points: just 3/12 from three but 9/13 from mid-range, with the Pistons preventing him from getting near the rim. Literally: none of his 24 shots came close to the basket, yet he found ways to be impactful. The Cavs were minus-9 in the nearly 11 minutes he rested. At this point, Kenny Atkinson must consider increasing his minutes, throwing him into the heroic playoff grind, and letting the chips fall where they may. Mitchell pulled the Cavs from another horrible first quarter (25-18) and a minus-14 in the second to a 79-81 score early in the fourth, opening 0-6 for their first lead since 0-2. But the team from neighboring Ohio missed all eleven three-point attempts in that final quarter and scored only six points in the last four minutes, a decisive stretch where they were outscored by seven. They’ve played nine playoff games, and in six of them, they’ve had a negative net rating in the final period. It was clear again that the Pistons have a plan, ways to play to their strengths (and weaknesses, which is also important), and a system that works.