NEW YORK (AP) — The players the Pistons put together to turn a 14-win team into a playoff squad aren’t ready to split up for the summer.
Instead, they’re going back to Detroit together — and maybe back to New York after that.
Cade Cunningham had 24 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and the Pistons stayed alive in their first postseason appearance since 2019 by beating the Knicks 106-103 on Tuesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series.
The Pistons insisted they felt no extra pressure when they talked Tuesday morning on what could have been their last shootaround of a season in which they went 44-38 in one of the biggest turnarounds from one season to the next in NBA history.
“Everybody’s got a back’s-against-the-wall type of mentality, but the group really loves being around each other and I think that was one of the biggest things,” forward Tobias Harris said. “Like, we don’t want this thing to stop. Like, we’ve got to keep on fighting.”