Sixers stumble late to lose at Detroit Pistons, 102-94 | Analysis

DETROIT — Cade Cunningham swung his arm in a circle to celebrate the Saddiq Bey bomb. And as a frustrated group of 76ers walked back to the bench for a desperation timeout while trailing by double digits with less than two minutes to play, the Pistons’ public-address announcer unleashed his textbook “DEEE-TROOOIT!”

The Sixers messed around with the lowly Pistons and then fumbled away the game in the fourth quarter, losing, 102-94, Thursday night at Little Caesars Arena.

“We’ll fix it,” coach Doc Rivers said. “But tonight is a good night in some ways for us to see, like, there’s certain ways we can’t play. ... Give [the Pistons] credit. They played hard, loose and free. And as the game [continued], it felt like we were the NCAA Tournament where we were the No. 1 seed.

“As the game came down, all of a sudden, they got looser. We got tighter.”

The Pistons entered Thursday with just 20 wins, but have recently been putting scares into superior teams. Thursday night, they hung around all game until outscoring the Sixers, 29-15, in the final period.

A Braxton Key three-pointer followed by a Killian Hayes floater got Detroit within 85-84 with less than seven minutes to play, before a Cunningham layup gave the gave the Pistons their first lead of the game. Back-to-back three-pointers by Isaiah Livers and Bey turned an 87-87 tie into a 93-87 Pistons lead, igniting what had been a tepid home crowd while their team trailed for the bulk of the night.

Then the avalanche continued. When Kelly Olynyk got free for a breakaway layup, Detroit’s advantage had suddenly ballooned to 10 points. Then came the big shot by Bey, the former Villanova standout, to put his team up 102-89 with less than two minutes to play.

Sixers star Joel Embiid scored 37 points on 11-of-19 from the field and 14-of-16 from the free-throw line and pulled down 15 rebounds, but had seven turnovers. Harden added 18 points on 4-of-15 shooting, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists and chose not to speak to media after the game. Five of the Sixers’ 15 turnovers came in the fourth quarter, which the Pistons parlayed into 9 points.

Cunningham, a contender for Rookie of the Year, was an impressive 12-of-20 from the field to finish with 27 points, 6 assists and 4 steals. Bey added 20 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds.

The third consecutive loss is another hit to the Sixers’ playoff positioning. They fell to fourth place in the Eastern Conference standings, 2 1/2 games behind the first-place Miami Heat (49-28), two games back of the second-place Milwaukee Bucks (48-28), and a half-game behind the third-place Boston Celtics (47-30) with six regular-season games to play. The Chicago Bulls (45-32) are in fifth place after an overtime win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday.

Both teams started cold offensively, spending the bulk of the first quarter shooting under 40%. What helped the Sixers build an 8-point lead: They went 7-of-7 from the free-throw line, while the Pistons did not attempt a shot from the stripe. Detroit also went 2-of-10 from the three-point arc in the period.

The Sixers’ shooting struggles dipped to 10-of-26 from the floor in the second quarter, helping the Pistons stay within striking distance when Olynyk hit two free throws to cut the Sixers’ lead to 36-35 with less than seven to play in the frame. But the Sixers answered with a 9-4 spurt to push their advantage back up to 47-39 on a Tobias Harris deep shot.

But they never truly created separation. Rivers lamented an offense that “just stood around ... just played outside [and] didn’t move the ball as a group.” Embiid added the Sixers’ chemistry and spacing with Harden is still “a work in progress.”

That all foreshadowed the Sixers’ disastrous finish. But though they surrendered a second-half lead for the third consecutive game, Rivers did not put Thursday’s defeat in the same category as their losses to 2021 Finals participants Phoenix and Milwaukee.

“That Milwaukee game, you watch the tape, we played well. Played hard,” Rivers said. “I thought our key guys made great decisions, and we just didn’t make shots. ... Tonight, put that in a bucket all by itself.”

A shaky Sixers second unit did not exactly stuff the box score again Thursday, scoring just 8 points to Detroit’s 39 from its reserves.

Despite Rivers extending his rotation to 10 players, the Sixers bench was outscored 21-0 in the first half on 0-for-5 shooting. The only stats the reserves registered before the break were one rebound by Shake Milton, one steal apiece by Georges Niang and Danny Green, and one block by DeAndre Jordan.

After the game, Rivers pushed back on a reporter’s word choice that the bench “struggled.”

“They didn’t struggle,” Rivers said. “They didn’t get a lot of shots, in their defense. I think, during that stretch, it was more James [as the primary shot-taker] than them.”

The Sixers’ reserves finally broke their scoring drought when Milton drained a three late in the third quarter. Milton finished with 3 assists and 2 rebounds in 19 minutes.

After Paul Millsap was the Sixers’ backup center in Tuesday’s loss to Milwaukee, Jordan was back in that role against the Pistons. The Sixers also went small, with Niang at center, for a stretch in the second quarter.

Furkan Korkmaz got his first game action since playing 11 minutes in last Friday’s win over the Clippers. He played five minutes and went 0-for-1 from the floor.

The Pistons’ primary bench contributors were Olynyk (12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists) and Hayes (10 points on 5-of-8 shooting).

Key, a rookie who spent most of the season with the G League’s Delaware Blue Coats and was on a 10-day contract with the Sixers earlier this season, got playing time while on a 10-day deal with the Pistons.

He initially struggled against his former team, starting 1-of-6 from the floor, including a missed point-blank layup late in the third quarter. But his corner three-pointer about midway through the final period, cut the Sixers’ lead to 85-82, was a key bucket in the Piston’s decisive surge. He also pulled down 4 rebounds to go with his 6 points in 16 minutes.

After his pregame warm-ups, Key chatted on the floor with Blue Coats assistant general manager Jameer Nelson, who made the trip to Detroit.