DETROIT \u2014 Can you imagine, after Cade Cunningham\u2019s first two postseason games this year, if he still wasn\u2019t eligible for the NBA\u2019s Most Valuable Player award, or for any of the All-NBA teams?<\/p>\n
Cunningham has become every bit the franchise player the Detroit Pistons dreamed he\u2019d be almost five years ago, when they took him as the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. His magical season continued Wednesday when he led the Eastern Conference\u2019s top seed on an incredible 30-3 third-quarter run en route to a 98-83 win<\/a> that evened the Pistons\u2019 first-round series with the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n He was everywhere: leading the break, throwing textbook passes to the opposite corner, finding shooters open off dribble handoffs, getting hockey assists. He fed Jalen Duren for a dunk and Tobias Harris for a floater and Duncan Robinson for a 3 \u2014 and Duren, again, for a lob dunk. And when they couldn\u2019t get open, he scored himself.<\/p>\n The Pistons\u2019 defense stymied Orlando in the half court and forced multiple turnovers. Cunningham ingests such mistakes and turns them into transition opportunities he rarely fails to convert.<\/p>\n Game 2 for Cunningham included 27 points, 11 assists and six rebounds. That followed Game 1\u2019s 39-point effort.<\/p>\n Cunningham moved the game to his will, as the greatest players in the league do this time of year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the best,\u201d Cunningham said afterward. \u201cIt\u2019s what I love about basketball, honestly \u2014 being out there, being in intense situations, making plays. I mean, we\u2019re just lucky to be here. We have the best job in the world. But then, to be in playoff basketball and to be playing for something and representing the city and all that stuff adds a lot more to it and makes it more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n The NBA is fortunate that the appellate process the Pistons undertook to make the case for Cunningham as eligible for the league\u2019s postseason awards<\/a> was successful \u2014 as it was for the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Don\u010di\u0107. Otherwise, all the morning yak\/fake argument-fests on cable Thursday would feature still more excoriation of the league for its well-meaning but deeply flawed 65-game rule, which was designed to press players and teams not to keep stars out for too many games for rest or to deal with minor discomforts.<\/p>\n Egregious overuse of load management is one thing, but the NBA was standing on an absurd technicality in Cunningham\u2019s case. He played in 64 games, one short of the required minimum, after suffering a collapsed lung following a collision with Washington Wizards rookie guard Tre Johnson in a March 17 game. He missed the next 11 games before returning for Detroit\u2019s final three of the regular season, but he fell one short, according to the rules. The independent arbitrator the league used to look at Cunningham\u2019s case determined that his punctured lung was a \u201ccondition,\u201d a league source told The Athletic last week, rather than a basketball injury, leading to his winning the appeal.<\/p>\n He is now healthy. And dealing.<\/p>\n (No, I have not forgotten that Anthony Edwards, currently gimping it out for the Wolves against Denver<\/a> on the knee that kept him from also hitting the 65-game minimum, had his appeal denied.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing to dominate a January game against a tanking team \u2014 or just one that stinks. To do it under the brightest lights and best competition, in the playoffs, brings a special aura to players who orchestrate such high-stakes games to their own syncopation.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, it uplifts us, makes us go with him,\u201d forward Isaiah Stewart said. \u201cFor the other team, it\u2019s just a problem for them that they have to figure out. They changed their coverages (on Cunningham) and stuff, which helped free us up and allowed us to make plays.\u201d<\/p>\n You cannot, in considering Cunningham and the Pistons, put aside the fact that just two years ago, they lost an NBA-record 28 games in a row. That season was so bad that owner Tom Gores, without hesitation, ate the remaining $65 million he owed former coach Monty Williams to pay off his contract and brought in J.B. Bickerstaff to take over. From those ashes, Detroit has somehow pivoted, almost overnight, into this season\u2019s snarling, physical bunch that was one of the NBA\u2019s best defensive teams. It made Game 1, in which the Magic pushed Detroit around all night<\/a>, even more incongruous.<\/p>\n The Pistons watched tape and stewed for two days. When Wednesday\u2019s game hit halftime tied at 46, Bickerstaff let his guys have it in the locker room. Someone apparently said \u201cmy bad\u201d once too often for the coach\u2019s tastes when discussing how Orlando continually was beating the home team for offensive rebounds. Facing an 0-2 deficit \u2014 and an improbable 12th straight playoff loss at home dating back to 2008 \u2014 Bickerstaff was choice with his words.<\/p>\n And Cunningham was equally discerning with his play. He wasn\u2019t coming back from a sprained ankle. It got his attention, and kept it. The awards don\u2019t mean as much as being back on the court, able to breathe without pain or wonder if the next hit to his ribs would put him back in the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just grateful to be here, grateful to be back, feeling the way I feel right now, whenever my team needs me,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cSo, all glory to God, for sure. I just want to continue to go and represent.\u201d<\/p>\n During the early-afternoon hours Wednesday, the talk around the NBA centered on anything but the postseason games being played. Commissioner Adam Silver was defending the Blazers\u2019 new owner, Tom Dundon<\/a>\u00a0and the growing perception that Dundon\u2019s frugal streak runs the approximate length of the Mississippi. Silver also suggested that while the Grizzlies would not, as LeBron James famously suggested a couple of weeks ago, be moving to Nashville, he wouldn\u2019t mind at all if the team played some regular season games there. That was a pretty sweet call with the mayor of Memphis afterwards, I bet. There was Charles Barkley, again, railing about tanking, and there was the disclosure that the now-disgraced former co-founder of Aspiration was cooperating with the NBA\u2019s investigation<\/a> into the Clippers\u2019 possible salary-cap circumvention.<\/p>\n The Pistons\u2019 star guard, however, commanded the night, evened the series and brought attention back where it needs to be when the NBA is at its best \u2014 on the court, and on the game\u2019s elite talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 Can you imagine, after Cade Cunningham\u2019s first two postseason games this year, if he still wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4576,355,11950,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-601546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-detroit-pistons","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando-magic","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}