Two of the NBA’s hottest teams faced off in the Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit on Wednesday night, as the Boston Celtics — winners of 10 of their last 11 — hit the road to face off against the surprising Detroit Pistons amidst an impressive seven-game win streak. Playing their second road game in as many nights, though, the Celtics seemed to run out of gas in the second half. The energetic Pistons weathered a hot shooting second quarter and ran the Celtics off the court in the third, and Boston’s six-game win streak was snapped with a 117-97 loss.
Jaylen Brown was ruled out for the night with a left thigh contusion suffered in Tuesday’s win over Toronto, and Luke Kornet missed the game due to a personal issue. In their absence, Jayson Tatum led the way with 27 points for the Celtics, while Derrick White and Payton Pritchard combined for 36 points and 10 made three-pointers. For Detroit, Cade Cunningham recorded a double-double with 21 points and 11 assists, and a massive game from Malik Beasley (26 points, 10-of-15 shooting) proved to be too much for the Celtics to overcome.
The Pistons landed the first punch tonight. They opened the game with an 13-2 run, catching the Celtics reeling and capitalizing on a frigid start from the Boston offense, who connected on just one of their first nine shots. Defense took the forefront in the early going, as the Pistons hardly lit up the nets despite their early lead. Both contenders shot below 40% from the field across the early minutes of the game.
Late in the first, though, Tatum started to take control. He shook Cunningham on a pull-up triple, sending the Pistons’ young star stumbling down the floor, and the highlight play sparked a late surge to put the Celtics in the lead for the first time tonight. Tatum piled up a game-high 12 points in the first quarter, but was credited with four turnovers and seemed frustrated with the officiating in the closing minutes. Benefitting from a spree of Celtic turnovers, the Pistons took a nine-point lead into the second half, 29-20.
The late surge visibly energized the Pistons, and they carried that momentum into the second quarter. Their lead hit double-digits in the early minutes, and though Derrick White converted a pair of three-pointers, less than two minutes of game time ticked by before Joe Mazzulla felt he needed a corrective timeout. With the Pistons’ shooters finding their rhythm, the Celtics seemed a bit flat-footed, and the lead hovered around 15 for a long stretch.
Boston surged late, though, with a three from Porzingis and a circus shot from White sparked a run that saw the Celtics absolutely scorch the nets from three-point range. Their cold offensive start felt like a thing of the past, as they drilled an absolutely comical eight three-pointers in the closing five minutes of the quarter. In a game that had seemingly been in Detroit’s command for the better part of 18 minutes, the two teams walked into the locker room at the halftime break tied at 55 points apiece.
To their credit, the Pistons were not perturbed by the Celtics’ late-first-half onslaught. As play resumed in the third quarter, they opened the second half with a 6-0 run and were able to push Boston back behind by as many as eight points in the early minutes. This is where the rest disparity really began to be felt, as it seemed like the Pistons were able to touch the paint offensively whenever they wanted to. Boston’s blistering three-point shooting was largely absent here, and Detroit’s physicality really appeared to wear the Celtics down. At the end of three, the Pistons’ lead sat at 11 points, 90-79.
Tasked with engineering a comeback, the Celtics stumbled in the opening minutes of the fourth. The Pistons rattled off a lightning-fast 8-0 run, with Beasley cashing in a pair of three-pointers that brought the Detroit crowd to their feet. The mammoth run shifted the question from how the Celtics would weather Tatum’s rest minutes to start the quarter to whether Tatum would re-enter the game at all, having logged 40 minutes in Toronto the night before.
With the Detroit lead quickly approaching 20, the Celtics continued to scrap. Threes from White and Prichard kept the Pistons from calling it a night early. As the clock ticked under eight minutes to play, Detroit’s Ausar Thompson went down with an injury, appearing to roll his ankle while handling the ball, ending his night. Absent their hyper-athletic wing, the Pistons still didn’t relinquish their lead, and with just under five minutes to play, Mazzulla waved the white flag and emptied his bench.
Next up, the Celtics will tackle another red hot team, hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers — owners of the league’s longest win streak at eight consecutive games — in the teams’ final matchup of the regular season this Friday at 7:30 PM EST on ESPN.
