PHILADELPHIA – At halftime of Sunday night’s game at Xfinity Mobile Arena, it looked like the Detroit Pistons were going to see their five-game winning streak snapped.
The Philadelphia 76ers, his hometown team, were moving the basketball, making shots and playing with an energy that the Pistons — despite being the team resting up, and not playing the night before, as Philadelphia had — couldn’t seem to match.
But then the second half started. Behind a stunning performance from Cade Cunningham – who scored 24 of his 26 points after the break, including a stunning goal over former Piston Andre Drummond in the final minutes of the game – Detroit cruised to a 111-108 victory, giving the franchise its best start to a season in a generation.
“It’s not hard to believe,” Cunningham said when asked if he was surprised by Detroit’s 8-2 start just two years after a 14-68 season. “Even then, I couldn’t believe we were at such a low level.
“To be here now, I feel like we’re where we’re supposed to be. We’ve got a lot of guys that have always been great players, always found ways to win at every level, and the NBA is tough. So we got here and we had to figure it out together. We were young, but now we’re putting our feet up and figuring it out.”
It’s a lot easier to figure things out when your team is led by a player like Cunningham, who backed up last season’s performance — when he made the All-Star and All-NBA debut of his career and led Detroit to the playoffs — by leading the league in assists and turning in one impressive performance after another as a starter.
Cunningham entered Sunday’s game having scored at least 30 points in three straight games and in four of Detroit’s last five games. But after playing well below his standards in that first half — with just two points on 1-for-9 shooting from the field — he completely turned things around, allowing Detroit to post its best record through 10 games since the start of the 2005-06 season with a 9-1 record.
Cunningham’s 17 points in the third quarter immediately put Detroit back in the game after trailing by as many as 13 points. And that was before his stunning goal over Drummond with less than two minutes left helped stave off a late layup from Tyrese Maxey (32 points, seven assists) and the 76ers (6-4).
“Man, he can get one of those every game,” Jalen Doeren (21 points, 16 rebounds) said with a smile. “I don’t know why he doesn’t do it. But I like it. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of that. His game speaks for itself.”
“I keep saying (he’s) the best point guard in the NBA, so he’s going to play games like this.”
Doeren has also taken a huge step forward this season, as Sunday’s game was the sixth time he has topped 20 points this season. His 19.4 points per game this season beats his averages from last season (11.8) and 2023-24 (13.8).
He’s also played an important role in Detroit’s third-ranked defense through 10 games, contributing two more steals and two blocks on Sunday while continuing to be one of the league’s most prolific players.
“He was dominant,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “The way he helps us protect the rim, the job he does on the boards, the threat he’s in the pick-and-roll and in the pocket … he’s a guy that can tie up our set as well. He’s another guy that can facilitate plays and make plays, and then he’s an elite communicator, which has been a huge growth for him defensively. He’s talking to guys, always in the right spot, so I thought he was great again tonight.”
Cunningham and Duren also share a connection between living through that dismal 14-68 season two years ago, when it seemed the Pistons were miles away from being relevant in the Eastern Conference. But as the league wakes up Monday morning, Detroit will look at the rest of the conference, looking at just one team — the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder — in the league standings.
“I think the sky is the limit,” Duren said when asked about his expectations. “I think we continue to follow J.B., continue to work hard, continue to defend, continue to play together…I think the sky is the limit at this point.”
For his part, Cunningham said that even when things were at their lowest two seasons ago, his belief in himself kept him going. It is this same belief that will not allow him to be satisfied with just a good start to the season.
“Yeah, I mean, more than anything, my self-confidence, knowing that I’m going to have success in the NBA, knowing that I’m going to do whatever it takes to have success,” he said. “I got lucky and landed a franchise in the city that had the same mindset that I felt it took me to take the next step.
“It’s been a tough ride, man. It’s been a lot of ups and downs. It’s still early, though… I’m not better than myself because we’re 8-2. I think that (success) is something we all want, but we want something bigger than this. So we just want to keep our heads down and keep working.”
