{"id":256070,"date":"2026-05-03T01:34:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256070\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:34:38","slug":"how-detroit-escaped-elimination-in-orlando-with-a-stunning-comeback-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256070\/","title":{"rendered":"How Detroit escaped elimination in Orlando with a stunning comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Orlando forward Paolo Banchero, when asked to explain what went wrong for the Magic in the second half against the Detroit Pistons on Friday night<\/a>, had a very succinct answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went on a pretty big run there,\u201d Banchero said. \u201cAnd we didn’t score.\u201d<\/p>\n

It truly might have been that simple.<\/p>\n

The Pistons \u2014 facing elimination and down by 24 points, on the road, in the second half, and about to join an ignominious club of No. 1 seeds who were ousted from the playoffs by No. 8 seeds \u2014 pulled off a comeback for the ages in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference first-round series against the Magic.<\/p>\n

The final score: Pistons 93, Magic 79.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren’t going to lay down,\u201d Pistons guard Cade Cunningham said. \u201cFor anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

A breakdown of how the comeback \u2014 or the collapse, depending on one\u2019s perspective \u2014 happened:<\/p>\n

The basic numbers<\/p>\n

\u2014 The score over the first 25 minutes: Magic 62, Pistons 38.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The score over the final 23 minutes: Pistons 55, Magic 17.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The score in the fourth quarter: Pistons 31, Magic 8.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Orlando’s shooting percentage in the fourth quarter: 5%. The Magic were 1 for 20.<\/p>\n

\u2014 That was the worst shooting percentage by any team, in any quarter, since Washington shot 5% in the fourth quarter against Charlotte on Nov. 25, 2015. Put another way, it was the worst shooting performance in any quarter by an NBA team in the league’s last 20,238 games.<\/p>\n

Orlando’s shooting drought<\/p>\n

The Magic missed 23 consecutive shots from the field, the most by any team in a playoff game during the play-by-play era (which started with the 1996-97 season).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Banchero and Desmond Bane were both 0 for 6.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jalen Suggs was 0 for 4.<\/p>\n

\u2014 In all, eight Magic players missed a shot during the drought and 13 of the 23 misses were from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Orlando led 70-54 when the run of missed shots started. Detroit led 89-75 when it ended. That’s a 35-5 Pistons run.<\/p>\n

\u2014 In game time, the missed-shot stretch took 13 minutes, 50 seconds. In real time, it was about 41 minutes.<\/p>\n

What the Pistons did<\/p>\n

Cunningham had seven field goals in the second half and Duncan Robinson had four for the Pistons in that span.<\/p>\n

The Magic \u2014 as a team \u2014 had four baskets, in the entire second half. And Cunningham outscored the Magic in the second half by himself, 24-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, we just have amazing spirit and never quit,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. \u201cThis is a testament to what we\u2019ve built.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit didn’t exactly get red-hot; the Pistons shot 40% in the second half. But the defense and a dominant show on the glass \u2014 the Pistons outrebounded the Magic 35-17 in the second half \u2014 was more than enough.<\/p>\n

The final word<\/p>\n

\u201cIt keeps us alive. It allows us to fight another day. And now it’s about us going and finishing the job. None of this stuff means anything if we don’t go win Game 7. But we’ll be back at home, we’ll have a lot of energy in there, and these last two games have given us a lot of life.\u201d \u2014 Cunningham, on what the comeback and having a chance to play Game 7 means.<\/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":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Orlando forward Paolo Banchero, when asked to explain what went wrong for the Magic in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[38323,5798,38475,108922,5803,139,141,140,5799,110],"class_list":["post-256070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-desmond-bane","tag-duncan-robinson","tag-j-b-bickerstaff","tag-jalen-suggs","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-paolo-banchero","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}