{"id":504584,"date":"2026-02-26T04:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:56:08","slug":"thunder-finish-loss-to-pistons-with-top-6-scorers-out-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504584\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder finish loss to Pistons with top 6 scorers out hurt"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons<\/a> faced a shell of the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> on Wednesday night in a possible NBA Finals preview.<\/p>\n

By the time it ended, with East-leading Detroit winning 124-116<\/a>, the Thunder were without their top six scorers.<\/p>\n

“We obviously had the wind in our faces a little out there tonight,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I thought it was a really good effort by the guys who played to gut that one out.”<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City started the game without its four leading scorers — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> (abdomen), Jalen Williams<\/a> (hamstring), Ajay Mitchell<\/a> (abdomen) and Chet Holmgren<\/a> (back) — and sixth-leading scorer Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a> (calf).<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

The only player from the top six who played was Isaiah Joe<\/a>, who averages 11.0 points, and the only regular starter was Lu Dort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With those two and a few rotation players, the Thunder led 34-22 after one quarter, but the Pistons outscored them 36-18 in the second — the worst margin Oklahoma City has had in any quarter this season.<\/p>\n

Things got even worse after halftime, with Joe (hip) and two-way center Branden Carlson<\/a> (back) unable to play.<\/p>\n

Detroit led 92-75 late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

“The game got away from us a little bit in the third, and it looked like it was going to be a runaway,” Daigneault said. “But our guys did a great job of getting back into it.”<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City got as close as three points in the fourth but couldn’t get the Pistons off the glass.<\/p>\n

The unquestioned star of the night for Oklahoma City was center Jaylin Williams<\/a>. He had 14 of his career-high 30 points in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

“He showed great toughness and, obviously, great offense,” Daigneault said. “We really flowed through him, and against a team that really pressures like Detroit, he was a great help for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons faced a shell of the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-504584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}