– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
BOSTON — It goes without saying that the Detroit Pistons, the team currently boasting the best record in the Eastern Conference, are most dangerous when their All-Star and league MVP candidate Cade Cunningham is on the floor, but on Monday night, as crunch time approached and eventually came, the star point guard was saddled with deep foul trouble and sitting on the bench.
It’s a good thing the Pistons are a whole lot more than just Cunningham’s all-around play, and their impressive depth more than kept the team afloat in a hostile environment — long enough for Cunningham’s eventual return and imminent impact upon his arrival that put another game in the win column for the conference’s best.
Cunningham had 32 points and 10 assists in leading the Pistons to a 112-105 victory over the Boston Celtics inside TD Garden on Monday, Detroit’s fourth consecutive victory. Former Celtic Javonte Green had five points and two steals in the fourth quarter, most of those coming with Cunningham on the bench as the Pistons reserves combined for 47 points and outscored Boston’s bench by 33 points.
“There’s gonna be games where you’re in foul trouble, just learning how to play with it and not, obviously, foul again, but not give up points and just be a cone out there,” Cunningham said. “So it was a balance between it, but my team made a lot of big plays covering for me, and I was able to make some plays too.”
Cunningham’s teammates came up big immediately after he committed his fifth foul on an eventual three-point play by the Celtics’ Derrick White with 7:53 remaining that cut Detroit’s lead down to three, 96-93. Caris LeVert, who subbed in for Cunningham, converted a layup on the next possession before Green nailed a three-pointer to extend the lead to eight.
Green then stole the ball clean from Patyon Pritchard before soaring in for an emphatic one-handed dunk over Derrick White to complete the 7-0 spurt. (The run ended when Green was whistled for a technical foul after arguing with the referee immediately after the dunk, and White made the ensuing free throw.)
Cunningham came back with just under the four-minute mark, and a couple of minutes later, he nailed back-to-back jump shots that thwarted Boston’s last attempt at a comeback. Jaylen Brown missed two free throws before Cunningham hit a mid-range jumper on the left wing to extend the Pistons’ lead to 108-102. White made a three on the next possession, but then Cunningham answered with another jumper inside the arc that put the Pistons up five.
The win was the first win for the Pistons in Boston since February 16, 2022. Detroit lost its other game against the Celtics in Beantown this season, a contest in which the Celtics snapped the Pistons’ then 13-game winning streak and prevented Detroit from setting a new franchise record for most consecutive wins.
“Definitely. Definitely wanted to come back, have that game back, you know, get that game back,” Cunningham said. “So obviously, they’ve been playing good basketball, so it was a good test for us. Great win for us.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Monday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 38 pictures in total.
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
