Pistons vs. Magic Game 7: Four Takeaways From Detroit’s Decisive Win to Avoid First-Round Exit

The Pistons are moving on.

After falling into a 3–1 series hole against the eighth-seeded Magic, it looked for a moment like Orlando was set to spoil Detroit’s magical run through the regular season with a shocking first-round exit.

Instead, the Pistons fought all the way back, including a monstrous comeback in Game 6 on the road and a pretty dominant performance back at home for Game 7 to win its first playoff series since 2008 and move on to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

We still don’t know who the Pistons will face in the next round—the Cavaliers and Raptors will decide that with a Game 7 of their own tonight—but we did learn plenty from the way Detroit took care of business on Sunday.

Below are our four takeaways from the Pistons win in Game 7.

Pistons save themselves from embarrassment

Pistons forward Tobias Harris and guard Cade Cunningham celebrate the win over the Magic. | Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images

The city of Detroit will raucously celebrate its first playoff series win since the 2008 financial crisis and will not apologize for it. Nor should any apologies come. But it is undeniable that the Pistons should not have been here in the first place and their Game 7 victory saved the organization from some deep embarrassment.

Cade Cunningham & Co. won 60 games this season, yet J.B. Bickerstaff and the rest of the team seemed entirely unprepared for the eight-seed Magic. They had to get punched in the mouth a few times by Orlando’s extremely physical roster before waking up and realizing the season was on the brink. Even so, Detroit went down 3–1 to a team that underperformed all year long.

The resilience shown after Game 5’s loss is commendable. However, only through the grace of Game 7’s victory do the Pistons escape months of ridicule from the NBA world at large. Such are the expectations for the No. 1 seed in the conference.

Tobias Harris plays the hero

Pistons forward Tobias Harris celebrates against the Magic. | Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images

Every Game 7 needs an unexpected hero to emerge from the rotation. The stars will usually star. But to emerge victorious from a game chock-full of tension and high stakes, someone needs to give more than expected. In this Game 7, that someone was Tobias Harris.

This was Harris’s 74th playoff game. He finished with 30 points on 11-for-18 shooting, the second-highest of his playoff career and the most points he scored in a postseason game since 2018. The veteran forward has been known to pop off as a scorer from time to time but had earned a reputation for shrinking when the moment was biggest, with a lifetime career postseason average of 13.1 points per game.

Not today. His team really needed what he could give, too—after Cunningham and Harris, no other Piston cracked 16 points on the day. A well-earned moment for a respected NBA vet.

Paolo Banchero was a one-man show

Magic forward Paolo Banchero reacts in the first half against the Pistons. | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

For so much of this series, Cade Cunningham found himself on an island, as his Pistons supporting class struggled to solve the athletic Magic defense. In Game 7, it was Paolo Banchero who was all alone, trying to keep his team afloat.

The former No. 1 pick put together some spectacular numbers in Game 7, scoring 38 points on 15-of-28 shooting with nine rebounds and six assists. It wasn’t nearly enough. Desmond Bane was his only teammate to score more than 13 points, while Detroit got a massive lift from Harris, and Pistons reserve Daniss Jenkins matched Orlando’s bench output on his own with 16 points.

In a vacuum, it was an encouraging performance for Banchero who underwhelmed as the No. 1 option for an Orlando team that entered the year with high expectations. As a group, it looked much more like the team that many expected throughout the series, and the Magic impressed in punching the Pistons in the mouth to open this series. But in the end, Banchero was the only Orlando player that stepped up for Game 7.

Cade Cunningham was ready for his first Game 7

Pistons guard Cade Cunningham dribbles while defended by Magic guard Desmond Bane. | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

Cade Cunningham was the only reason the Pistons got this far in the first place as the only creator on Detroit’s roster. But it was fair to wonder if he’d be ready for the Game 7 spotlight with only six games’ worth of playoff experience entering this Magic series. Any such worries proved unfounded; the steady Cunningham proved quite capable of handling the moment, even with everything on the line.

The MVP candidate finished with double-double 32 points on 10-of-18 shooting and 12 assists. A strong start from three helped open up the floor for his teammates, and Harris (as noted above) was happy to take advantage. More than anything Cunningham looked unflappable. The intense Magic defense never shook him and he didn’t wilt under the first-half struggles that kept the game close until near halftime. Most importantly the star point guard hit big shots time and time again in the second half every time Orlando pushed to keep the game close.

All the questions that have arisen this series about the Pistons have to do with everybody but Cunningham. He was, for the most part, outstanding throughout this first round and delivered under the enormous pressure of a No. 1 seed falling behind a No. 8 seed by two games. In Game 7 Cunningham finished the job—cementing the reality that the Pistons have a true playoff killer at the heart of their franchise.

If you want to relive all the action from Sunday’s Game 7 as it happened, our live updates of the game are below.

Pistons vs. Magic Game 7 live updates

How we got here ...

The Pistons were the best team in the East all season long and finished as one of three teams to clear the 60-win mark, an extraordinarily impressive achievement for a franchise that hasn’t enjoyed a lot of good basketball in the last 15 or so years. But the roster’s offensive weaknesses were exposed immediately come playoff time after the Magic earned the No. 8 seed with a play-in win; they dared anybody other than Cunningham on the Pistons’ roster to beat them and for the first four games of the series that proved a winning strategy.

But Detroit refused to roll over. Cunningham set a franchise record with 45 points to win Game 5 and the Pistons roared back from 22 points down in Game 6 as Orlando’s own offensive ineptitude caused an epic collapse. Nobody knows how Game 7 will look on the court, but we do know that it’s going to be fun to watch. This whole series has been.

From a game-by-game breakdown, here’s how we got here—and we can’t wait to see how it all wraps up.

Game 1: Magic 112, Pistons 101
Game 2: Pistons 98, Magic 83
Game 3: Magic 113, Pistons 105
Game 4: Magic 94, Pistons 88
Game 5: Pistons 116, Magic 109
Game 6: Pistons 93, Magic 79

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