The Detroit Pistons faced a short-handed Golden State Warriors team for their final match-up of the season. Both sides were missing key players, with Steph Curry absent for the Warriors and Cade Cunningham out for the Pistons.
Guards Out Due to Injury
Cade Cunningham will be sidelined for at least the next two weeks due to a collapsed lung. Steph Curry is dealing with a knee injury and will remain out for a few more days.
If you bought tickets expecting to watch Steph Curry play his one game in Detroit, you are probably pretty disappointed.
The Pistons are navigating the last few weeks of the season without Cade Cunningham. The Warriors are also having role players stepping into larger roles.
Pistons’ Win Against Wizards
The Pistons are first in the East and it isn’t just because of Cade Cunningham. The Pistons backups have passed the test as they defeated the Washington Wizards last night by 22 points.
It wasn’t pretty at certain points and not really a huge statement given the fact that the Wizards are playing for draft positioning, but it was a nice trial run against a lesser team before hitting the ground running over the next couple weeks for the Pistons with a pretty brutal stretch of games.
The hero in last night’s game was Caris LeVert, who had one of his better games as a Piston with 14 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists. There is no one player.
Importance of the Game
Without Steph Curry, the Warriors are not quite the level of offense that puts fear into opposing teams. This is one of the more winnable games left on the Pistons schedule, so getting a win tonight before a stretch of tough games is very important.
I won’t try to argue that Cade Cunningham by himself is a bigger loss than both Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler, but the Pistons rely on Cade Cunningham so much to bring their offense to at least league-average levels and having to now navigate an important stretch of games for seeding purposes without him is a huge blow.
- The Pistons got off to a strong start to their first game without Cade last night against the lowly-Wizards.
- A 2nd quarter collapse turned it into a tight game before the Pistons pulled away late.
- The 2nd quarter collapse came on the heels of a stretch of very sluggish offense combined with defensive lapses.
The sluggish offense is going to be par for the course without Cade Cunningham, but the Pistons are going to have to tread water on the strength of their defense, so they need to stay consistent on that end.