– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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WASHINGTON — Cade Cunningham may not have the nickname “Joker” like Nikola Jokic, but the Detroit Pistons star is not playing around with all these triple-doubles that he’s amassing, a huge part of his team continuing to look ahead of schedule in their continued rebuild.
Cunningham notched his fourth triple-double of the season with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as the Pistons cruised to a 124-104 victory over the Washington Wizards inside Capital One Arena on Sunday. Jaden Ivey led Detroit in scoring with 28 points while Malik Beasley had 26, including six three-pointers.
Cunningham has four triple-doubles on the season, trailing only Jokic’s six for the league lead. He also added five steals as Detroit forced 17 Wizards turnovers.
The return home for the Wizards did little to stop their losing skid, which is now at five games. Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole each scored 22 points for Washington, who were outrebounded 51-39.
Alexandre Sarr, the No. 2 overall pick of this year’s draft, struggled for Washington as he scored just four points on 1-of-7 shooting in 23 minutes.
Detroit, now a game under .500 at 7-8, is a far cry from the squad that was in the midst of losing 28 games in a row from October 30 to November 30 of last year, the longest single-season losing streak in NBA history and tied for the longest overall losing streak in league annals. After starting the season 0-4, the Pistons have won seven of their last 11 games and probably would currently hold a four-game winning streak had Ron Holland II made any of the two free throws that he missed with under a second remaining in regulation in an overtime loss in Milwaukee to the Bucks last Wednesday.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Sunday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Michael R. Smith. 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 24 pictures in total.
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