{"id":636833,"date":"2026-04-28T19:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636833\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T19:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:28:10","slug":"pistons-jalen-duren-makes-emphatic-statement-on-teams-nba-playoff-hopes-amid-3-1-deficit-to-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636833\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons&#8217; Jalen Duren Makes Emphatic Statement on Team&#8217;s NBA Playoff Hopes Amid 3-1 Deficit to Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Detroit Pistons star Jalen Duren is determined to help the team claw its way back from a 3-1 series deficit to the Orlando Magic in the 2026 NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">&#8220;It ain&#8217;t over, bro,&#8221; he said, per The Athletic&#8217;s <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7236782\/2026\/04\/28\/pistons-game-4-loss-magic\/\">Hunter Patterson<\/a>. &#8220;Teams have come back from down 3-1 so many times. It wouldn&#8217;t be the first time in history. We&#8217;ve got to keep it one at a time, go protect the crib and keep moving from there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Thirteen teams have <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nba\/news\/the-history-of-blown-3-1-leads-in-the-nba-playoffs-do-knicks-timberwolves-stand-a-chance\/\">come back<\/a> to win a postseason series after dropping three of the first four games. It has been done before &#8220;many times.&#8221; That&#8217;s true.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">But the 2020 season was the last time it happened, and you have to go back to 2016 when it occurred within a normal setting. The 2020 playoffs unfolded at the Disney World bubble, where there were no fans or travel concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">You wouldn&#8217;t expect Duren to have any different attitude, but the way the Pistons have played doesn&#8217;t inspire a lot of confidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Duren is partially responsible for that himself. He&#8217;s averaging just 9.8 points in the series. The All-Star center was Detroit&#8217;s second-leading scorer (19.5 points) in the regular season, and the Magic have totally neutralized him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Jamal Cain&#8217;s thunderous dunk in the fourth quarter of Game 4 was almost too poetic. A role player for the Magic whom general fans of the NBA probably don&#8217;t even know threw it down over a helpless Duren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">That&#8217;s the series in a nutshell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The effect of Orlando&#8217;s suffocating defense is also evident by Cade Cunningham turning the ball over almost seven times per contest. He&#8217;s chucking up 23 shot attempts on a nightly basis, an example of how much he has to carry the offense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Maybe something starts to spark for the Pistons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Otherwise, it looks like Detroit could be facing some very big questions in terms of what to do with a roster that is getting exposed at the worst possible time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Pistons star Jalen Duren is determined to help the team claw its way back from a 3-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-636833","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\/636833","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=636833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}