With 25 straight losses, the Detroit Pistons are on the cusp of matching dubious NBA history.
The Brooklyn Nets are mired in their worst slump of the season and will attempt to avoid losing to the Pistons on Saturday night when the teams meet in New York City in the front end of a home-and-home set.
Winless since getting a 16-point victory at home against the Chicago Bulls on Oct. 28, the Pistons hold the distinction of the NBA’s second-longest single-season skid. If Detroit’s losing streak continues on Saturday, it would equal the NBA record set by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2010-11 season and matched by the Philadelphia 76ers in 2013-14.
The NBA’s longest losing streak over multiple seasons is held by the 76ers, who dropped 28 straight spanning the 2014-15 and 2015-16 campaigns.
Detroit heads to Brooklyn after consecutive single-digit losses. After getting routed by a combined 64 points in losses to Philadelphia and the Milwaukee Bucks, the Pistons took a six-point setback to the host Atlanta Hawks on Monday and an eight-point home defeat to the Utah Jazz on Thursday.
Against the Jazz, who were missing four of their top six scorers on the second night of a back-to-back, the Pistons took an eight-point lead with 4:43 left in the first quarter and never led again.
Detroit’s Cade Cunningham followed his 43-point showing in Atlanta by scoring 28 vs. Utah, marking the first time this season he has at least 25 points in three straight games.
Cunningham also committed six turnovers for the Pistons, who allowed 27 points off 21 turnovers and gave up 64 points in the paint and 23 second-chance points to negate a game in which they shot at least 50 percent in consecutive games for the first time this season.
“It’s definitely on my mind,” Cunningham said of the team’s losing ways. “That’s history that nobody wants to be part of. We’re trying to build something that’s sustainable. It’s not like we’re just trying to just go out there and win one game.
“We want to win multiple games. To be on the wrong side of history, nobody wants to be there.”
While the Nets are 12-3 in the past 15 meetings with Detroit, recent games are not going well for Brooklyn.
Brooklyn won six of seven from Nov. 25-Dec. 8 to get three games over .500 but is 1-6 in its past seven, including a five-game losing streak.
Brooklyn is allowing an average of 122.7 points in those games and allowed at least 120 points for the fifth straight time when it absorbed a 122-117 home loss to the Denver Nuggets Friday night.
The Nets produced a significantly better showing than Wednesday’s 121-102 loss to the New York Knicks by shooting 48.3 percent from the floor. Brooklyn also allowed the Nuggets to shoot 51.7 percent and dropped to 1-14 when opponents shoot at least 50 percent.
“We definitely not here for moral victories, but our effort was better, our energy was better, just our overall vibe,” Brooklyn center Nic Claxton said. “So that’s definitely something we can take into these next few games.”
Cam Thomas scored 11 of his 23 in the fourth quarter and Cameron Johnson added 17. Mikal Bridges added 14 after shooting 27.4 percent (17 of 62) in his previous four games, but he and Thomas were a combined 1-of-9 from 3-point range.
–Field Level Media