The Detroit Pistons’ misery is reaching historic proportions.
Detroit’s 24-game losing streak is the third longest in a single season in NBA history. The 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers dropped 26 straight.
When losing streaks spanning two seasons are added in, the Pistons’ slide is tied for fourth all-time. Philadelphia (2014-15, 2015-16) lost 28 straight and Cleveland (1981-82, 1982-83) dropped 24 straight.
Detroit will try to avoid moving further up the list when it hosts the Utah Jazz on Thursday.
After enduring 32-point blowouts in back-to-back nights at Philadelphia and Milwaukee last week, the Pistons were at least competitive in Atlanta on Monday. They scored 72 second-half points but couldn’t overcome another slow start and fell 130-124 to the Hawks.
Cade Cunningham did all he could to halt the skid, pouring in a career-high 43 points and adding seven assists and three steals.
“The margin for error in the NBA is small,” Cunningham said. “We have to be able to put all those things together to be a winning team, and we have to learn from the games where we know we have a hole here, we fix everything else. Then the next game we fix that hole and something else opens up.
“It’s all a learning experience for us and we have a young team, and we need to have these moments. We hate where it’s gotten, but we need these moments to learn and get better.”
One thing Cunningham hasn’t lost is his spirit. He also is doing his part to keep his teammates’ spirits up.
“I think it’s important for me to be a voice and try to uplift everybody,” he said. “I know they always try to uplift me. I’ve always been that way.”
There are a lot of things the Pistons need to fix. They are tied with the Memphis Grizzlies as the worst 3-point shooting team in the league (33.2 percent). They commit the second-most turnovers in the league, 16.4 per game. On defense, they rank in the bottom 10 in points allowed and field-goal percentage.
Utah will be playing the second game of a road back-to-back set after losing 124-116 to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.
That was a bad defeat for the Jazz considering Cleveland was missing its top three scorers.
The Cavs pulled away by outscoring the Jazz 32-23 in the fourth quarter.
“Every one of us really believed we could still make a run at the end,” Utah forward Lauri Markkanen said. “They just shot the ball really well from (3-point range). Once a team makes a couple in a row, they start feeling good and it’s very hard to stop them.”
Utah has a dismal 2-13 road record, which should give the Pistons some hope.
“Part of us growing as a group is recognizing that with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, a 10-point game is nothing in the NBA now,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “So we just really need to stick with the plan, stick with our spacing and trust each other — nobody has to save us.”
Markkanen had 26 points and 10 rebounds on Wednesday, and Collin Sexton supplied 20 points. They were traded to Utah prior to last season as part of the blockbuster that brought high-scoring guard Donovan Mitchell — who missed the Wednesday game with an illness — to Cleveland.
“Me and Lauri wanted to win this game so bad,” Sexton said.
–Field Level Media