The Detroit Pistons are one of the NBA’s most surpising teams of this regular season, as they continue to push for a playoff spot.
And the Motor City team did just that Friday night with one of the biggest wins of the seasons, as they beat the Eastern Conference‘s best team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, 133-122.
With the victory, the Pistons clinched a winning record for the first time since the 2015-16 season and officially triple last year’s total of 14 wins. That’s a big accomplishment for one of the worst teams in NBA‘s recent history, and it speaks volumes for the fourth youngest squad in the league (24.27 years, on average).
Poster dunk steals the show
Despite the loss, Cleveland Cavaliers forward-center Dean Wade stole the show with a monster poster dunk over German superstar guard Dennis Schröder, who was left speechless as the former Kansas State star jumped next to him.
The play happened with 6 minutes and 57 seconds left on the fourth quarter and the Cavs down 110-96. Wade dribbled the ball and he headed to the rim without any defenders around him. As he prepared to dunk the ball, Schröder tried to draw the foul but it wasn’t a smart choice as the Cleveland player jumped all over him.
The crowd went insane with the monster play and Wade was cheered by his teammates who celebrated the dunk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for the Cavaliers as they ultimately lost to the Pistons. The poster play did earned the Cleveland player some praise on social media, with users mentioning the fact that they were not familiar with Dean’s jumping skills.
The Detroit Pistons mean business
The Detroit Pistons came into the 2024/2025 season believing they were a playoff team when the notion seemed outlandish. More critically to their success, they’ve exhibited the everyday discipline of purpose necessary to make that outlandish aspiration come to life.
With a little more than three weeks from seeing the Pistons make their playoff dream a reality, they have delivered and gave fans hope of finally seeing their team make a run in the postseason. A lot of that has to do with the way that Cade Cunningham, the first overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, has played.
He’s taken the necessary leap from being a developmental building block on a rebuilding team to becoming a star floor general league-wide, and his numbers back that up. The former Oklahoma State Cowboy is having a career-best season, averaging a career-high 25.7 points on 45.9 percent shooting from the floor and 36.3 percent from three-point range.
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