{"id":618378,"date":"2026-04-20T03:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618378\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T03:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:26:07","slug":"pistons-open-playoffs-with-a-flop-as-easts-top-seed-losing-to-8th-seeded-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618378\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons open playoffs with a flop as East’s top seed, losing to 8th-seeded Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT (AP) \u2014 The Detroit Pistons<\/a> opened the NBA<\/a> playoffs with a flop.<\/p>\n

Detroit went into the postseason as the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference, openly talking about exceeding modest expectations and winning the franchise’s fourth championship.<\/p>\n

If the Pistons don’t play better than they did in a 112-101 loss<\/a> to Orlando on Sunday night in Game 1, they might get knocked out in the first round again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sick about losing this one,\u201d Cade Cunningham said after scoring a playoff career-high 39 points and not getting much help from his teammates. \u201cIt’s a long series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit, which has lost an NBA-record 11 straight home postseason games, hosts the Magic again on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The Pistons have not won a home playoff game since 2008, which is also the last year they advanced in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

They were sluggish early against the Magic and had a built-in excuse, playing for the first time in a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t come out with the right energy,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n

They were flat early in the third quarter, too, and that’s tougher to explain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were chasing them all night,\u201d coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. \u201cWe made some runs to get ourselves back in the ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic, meanwhile, looked ready to play just two nights after routing Charlotte<\/a> in an elimination game to earn a spot in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been off and we\u2019ve found a little bit of a rhythm,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cThat always plays a part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit never had the lead.<\/p>\n

Cunningham made a 3-pointer to pull the Pistons into a tie midway through the third quarter, but they wasted the opportunity by giving up 14 of the next 17 points and couldn’t recover.<\/p>\n

Detroit finished with a season-low 31 baskets, connecting on just 40% of its shots. Tobias Harris scored 17 points as the only double-digit scorer other than Cunningham, but he missed 10 of 15 shots.<\/p>\n

All-Star Jalen Duren, who averaged nearly 20 points in the regular season, was limited to four shots and eight points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey packed the paint,\u201d Bickerstaff said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to put a bunch of bodies in the paint to try to make it difficult on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT (AP) \u2014 The Detroit Pistons opened the NBA playoffs with a flop. Detroit went into the postseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[141525,5930,125041,141524,3979,64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-618378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ap-online-sports-headlines","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","11":"tag-ap-top-news-sports","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-au","14":"tag-australia","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618378","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=618378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}