The Pistons endured another winless week, but Monty Williams’ spirits are at least buoyed by his observation that the many young players under his charge didn’t also make it a joyless week.
“Our guys, look, it’s human nature,” he said after Saturday’s loss at Brooklyn saw the Pistons tie the NBA’s single-season mark for longest losing streak at 26 games. “Everybody feels down when you lose and you’ve lost this many in a row. You have to allow people to be human. But the way they come back the next day is something I’m blown away by. I’ve been around many teams and not many have that type of resiliency. Our guys don’t want to be a part of any kind of losing streak, but every day they come back with focus and drive and grit.”
The locker room is a somber place in the aftermath of each loss, though. Cade Cunningham, accustomed to winning and leading during his days at Montverde Prep and with USA Basketball, revealed palpable devastation when the Pistons lost to Utah at Little Caesars Arena last week to run the streak to 25.
“We had a shot to win it and down the stretch, just wasn’t solid enough,” he said. “Me, personally, I made six turnovers. Kills us. We had 20 as a team, gave up 27 points off of it. That killed us. I didn’t keep anybody in front of me today. That killed us. That’s something that’s got to be better and I’m kind of sick right now. I am sick right now.”
Cunningham, limited to 12 games last season before underdoing surgery to repair a stress fracture in his shin, has played all 29 games this season as one of the few Pistons who hasn’t missed time due to injury. He’s playing a team-high 34.8 minutes a game while averaging 22.4 points and 7.1 assists. And the six-turnover outing against Utah aside, Cunningham has cut his turnovers down considerably of late, averaging 2.9 in 10 December games after averaging 4.5 through the end of November. His true shooting percentage has risen to 56.3 percent in December and he’s averaged 4.9 free-throw attempts per game during the month.
The Pistons hope to get back Jalen Duren soon – he’s missed 15 games with sprains of each ankle, including the last eight straight since injuring his left ankle in the Dec. 6 loss to Memphis – and then knit the individual strides Williams sees in his young players into efforts that start producing wins. In the meantime, Cunningham is doing everything in his power to turn momentum around.
“That’s history that nobody wants to be part of, so we’re trying to build something that’s sustainable,” he said. “It’s not like we’re trying to go out there and win one game – we want to win multiple games. … We’re not 2 and 26 bad, you know what I mean? So, yes, I think we can turn it around. I think we can play a lot better brand of basketball than we’re playing right now – not as far as the system we’re running or any of that, but just executing our game plans, taking care of the ball, keeping guys in front of you. Nothing to do with the system. That’s the players. We’ve got to be better about that.”
THIS WEEK IN PISTONS HISTORY
On Dec. 27, 2006, Rip Hamilton scored 51 points as the Pistons lost a wild triple-overtime game to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Maybe the oddest thing about Hamilton’s 51-point outing is that he took only one 3-point shot among his 37 attempts in that game, hitting exactly 50 percent of his 36 2-point shots and making his lone triple try. Hamilton also was a perfect 12 of 12 at the foul line. His teammates didn’t have nearly as much success from the field. Longtime backcourt partner Chauncey Billups finished with 17 points and 10 assists, but made only 3 of 13 shots and 2 of 9 triples. Tayshaun Prince was 4 of 16 and Rasheed Wallace 4 of 14. The second-leading scorer for the Pistons that night was Nazr Mohammed, who scored 18. The Knicks had four players score at least 26 points; Stephon Marbury erupted for 41 and Eddy Curry added 33. The Pistons were playing a back-to-back, winning by one at New Jersey the previous night to run their winning streak to five games. An exhausted Hamilton, who played 55 minutes, did not score in the third overtime. “Rip was unbelievable tonight to keep us in the game,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. “It’s just unfortunate a performance like that goes a little bit wasted.”
GORES: ‘WE REQUIRE CHANGE’
Pistons owner Tom Gores spoke to Pistons beat reporters late last week and stressed that while he remains optimistic for the future of a very young nucleus, the current historic losing streak requires a reassessment and action. “We require change,” he said. “We’re not doing well. As far as where we were going in getting this set of players and flexibility, I think the work is still there. We have to assess what’s not working. I’m down to Monty and I talking about rotations. I don’t normally do that. Monty is so good and knows what he’s doing. He’s open to talking about it. We do have to change something. I can’t tell you exactly what it is. We’re diving in pretty hard. We’re probably two weeks ahead of you guys. Our disappointment is catching up to us, too. We expected a lot more. We have to be real and realize that there are things that haven’t been working with the makeup of the team. Sure, we should have won a few more games, but how many of those games? Three or four? Who knows what the number is. We’re not set up like the way we need to be set up. … I expect change.”
PISTONS TRIVIA
How many Pistons players have scored 50 or more points in their uniform?
A: 4
B: 7
C: 6
D: 10
THE WEEK AHEAD
- TUESDAY – Brooklyn, coming off of Saturday’s 126-115 win over the Pistons at Barclays Center, comes to Little Caesars Arena for the first time this season with a record of 14-15 after snapping a five-game losing streak with the win over the Pistons. That losing streak started during a five-game Western Conference road swing and continued with home losses to the Knicks and defending NBA champion Nuggets. Cam Thomas leads the Nets in scoring at 23.9 a game. Mikal Bridges spearheaded the Saturday win over the Pistons with 29 points and seven assists.
7 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS DETROIT and 97.1 FM THE TICKET
- THURSDAY – The Pistons go to Boston, coming off a Christmas win at the Lakers. The Celtics sit atop the Eastern Conference standings with a 23-6 record. This will be the first meeting of the Pistons between the Pistons and Celtics, who get 26.9 points a game from Jayson Tatum and another 22.8 from Jaylen Brown. The Celtics added Kristaps Porzingis (19.6 points, 7.1 rebounds) and Jrue Holiday (13.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.9 assists) to the roster over the off-season while parting with Marcus Smart, Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams.
7 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS DETROIT and 97.1 FM THE TICKET
- SATURDAY – The Pistons host the Toronto Raptors, who handed them a 142-113 defeat in Toronto on Nov. 19. The Raptors are amid a disappointing start to their season, taking an 11-18 record into the week after losing their last three games. The Raptors are one of the teams being most closely watched for potential trades as both Pascal Siakam (21.3 points a game) and O.G. Anunoby (14.8) are likely free agents at season’s end. Toronto lost Fred VanVleet to free agency over the off-season, replacing him by signing Dennis Schroder.
6 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS EXTRA and WWJ-AM 950
TRIVIA ANSWER
Six Pistons players have scored 50 or more points in a game while wearing the franchise’s uniform. George Yardley was both the first and the only one to do it twice. He did it less than three weeks apart in the very first season the Pistons played in Detroit after relocating from Fort Wayne, Ind., in time for the 1957-58 season. Yardley scored 51 points at Boston on Jan. 15, 1958 in a game the Pistons lost 131-113. It was a happier occasion for him 20 days later when the Pistons beat the Syracuse Nationals at Olympia Stadium 118-113 behind Yardley’s 52 points. The Pistons also lost to Chicago, 125-112, when Dave Bing scored 54 points on Feb. 21, 1971. The only other Pistons player to score more than 10 points in the game was rookie Bob Lanier, who scored 20 off the bench. The next two 50-point Pistons outings also came against the Bulls. Kelly Tripucka scored 56 on Jan. 29, 1983 at the Silverdome as the Pistons outlasted Chicago 128-126. Tripucka hit 20 of 22 free throws in that game. His scoring mark stood for 18 years until Jerry Stackhouse’s 59 points led the Pistons past Chicago on April 3, 2001 by a 110-83 count. Then came Rip Hamilton’s 51-point outing against the Knicks, as detailed in This Week in Pistons History above, followed by Blake Griffin’s 50-point heroics in an Oct. 23, 2018 overtime win, 133-132, over Philadelphia. The most recent member of the Pistons 50-point club is Saddiq Bey, who totaled 51 on March 17, 2022 in a 134-120 win over Orlando when Bey hit 10 of 14 from the 3-point line.
(Eddie Rivero, Pistons basketball information specialist, contributed to this report.)