Niyo: Shell-shocked Pistons digging their own playoff grave

Show Caption Orlando — Trajan Langdon, Pistons’ team president, stood leaning against a railing near the visitors’ tunnel at the Kia Center late Monday night. His arms were folded, his face expressionless. But he wasn’t alone, watching in disbelief as Orlando pushed the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference to the brink of playoff elimination barely a week into the postseason. The Pistons couldn’t score to save their season. They went without a field goal for the final 5:24 of Game 4, save for a meaningless putback from Isaiah Stewart in the waning seconds. In Game 3, Cunningham’s three-pointer with 3:15 left—tying the contest after a furious fourth-quarter rally—proved to be the Pistons’ final basket. This time, the final horn sounded as a funeral dirge rather than an alarm bell. The Pistons aren’t ready for the playoffs. After a 94-88 loss to the Magic, they’re now in a 3-1 hole heading back to Detroit. They talked about their struggles, but their disappointment was evident. “I mean, going into it? Shocked,” said Cunningham. “But the way we’ve been playing, that stuff’s not good enough to win games in this league. This league’s too good. They’re a good team. They’re out-rebounding us, turning me over. We haven’t hit enough shots. Our defense hasn’t caught its footing.” Only 13 NBA teams in history have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven series, and just five of those were in the last 20 years. The Pistons’ 2003 playoff run against Tracy McGrady’s Magic is the closest parallel, but this feels different. Back then, the Pistons were the better team, solving McGrady’s one-man show. Now, it feels like a role reversal. The Pistons’ All-NBA leader, Cunningham, finished with eight turnovers and just six assists, shooting 7-for-23 from the field and 3-for-11 from three. “Yeah, it's frustrating,” he admitted. “A lot of it was on myself. I was frustrated with my own play, having numbers, not making plays in transition, things I do best. Just not being able to make plays for my team.” The problem isn’t just Cunningham’s struggles. No one else on the team can make plays for themselves in this series. The Magic have beaten the Pistons at their own game—offensive rebounds, second-chance points, and physicality. Orlando scored 23 points off 20 turnovers, and the Pistons’ defensive lapses and careless turnovers keep happening. Tobias Harris noted, ‘We gotta be more ready to just go out there and scrap like we need it. We’re a little too casual. Everybody knows that in our locker room. We have to be better. Every single guy—all of us—has to be better.’ Yet Monday night was anything but that. They tried to force Duren inside, resulting in three empty possessions: a turnover, a Cunningham miss, and an offensive foul on Duren. The Magic hit two three-pointers, igniting another loud Kia Center crowd. By the time Orlando led by a dozen, it felt like the reverse of Detroit’s third-quarter blitz from Game 3. But the Pistons rallied, with Cunningham asserting himself, the defense tightening, and impactful bench minutes from Stewart (three blocks) and Caris LeVert helping turn the tide. By the end of the quarter, the Pistons hadn’t just closed the gap—they’d taken the lead, extending it further in the second quarter. The Magic went ice cold from deep, missing 10 straight three-pointers, but the Pistons’ inability to get out of their own way kept them from capitalizing. Careless turnovers and defensive lapses persisted, and Bickerstaff’s rotation struggles remained unresolved. Langdon acknowledged the issues but deferred addressing them until after the season. ‘The hope is that we give ourselves a chance to play some real meaningful basketball in the postseason, and that’ll allow us to assess what this team is and who we are going forward.’ But with just a handful of meaningful games left, that may be all they get. The Pistons’ 60-win regular season didn’t guarantee playoff success. If this is all they’ve got, it may be all they have to assess.