DETROIT (AP) \u2014 The Detroit Pistons opened the NBA 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\u2019s fourth championship.<\/p>\n
If the Pistons don\u2019t play better than they did in a 112-101 loss 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 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\u2019t 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<\/p>\n
Larry Lage, The Associated Press<\/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":615695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-615694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}