Three quick observations from Monday night’s 113-110 overtime win over the Atlanta Hawks at Little Caesars Arena
FINGERS CROSSED – The Pistons took a 5-2 record over their previous seven games into Monday’s matchup with Atlanta – an overtime win featuring another set of clutch plays from Cade Cunningham that gives them their first three-game win streak of the season – mostly because they finally got healthy in mid-February. Now they’ll hold their breath, cross their fingers and hope tests don’t show anything that will cause Isaiah Stewart to miss significant time. Stewart’s right knee was injured in Monday’s second quarter when Isaiah Livers and Clint Capela collided near the basket, the force of their collision causing Capela to roll into Stewart’s legs. He limped to the locker room and was declared out with a right knee injury. The Pistons opened the second half with Marvin Bagley III at center. Stewart has improved as much or more than anyone on the roster over the course of the season, averaging 9.9 points and 10.5 rebounds while shooting 50 percent over the past 16 games. He’s also become one of the NBA’s best at challenging shots. Without Stewart, the Pistons battled Atlanta to the final possession in a game that saw 30 lead changes in regulation. The last came with 1.6 seconds to play when Cunningham, fouled on an inbounds pass, hit a pair of free throws to give the Pistons the lead. John Collins had a chance to win it for the Hawks, but could only split a pair at the line when he, too, was fouled on an inbounds pass. Cunningham dominated the overtime, scoring seven of the team’s first 10 points and assisting on the one basket he didn’t score in that stretch, and he finished with 28 points, six rebounds and 10 assists for his eighth double-double in a career-high 43 minutes.
MORE LIVERS – With Hamidou Diallo missing the game with a non-COVID illness, rookie Isaiah Livers got another chance at rotation minutes, the fifth straight game he’s played after appearing in just one December game before last week as he rehabilitated the foot injury that required surgery last March to end his Michigan college career. Livers finished with nine points, two rebounds, three assists and two steals in 25 minute, far and away his longest stint of the season. He hit his first shot, a triple, and had another three-point opportunity wiped out when driving basket and and-one possibility was overturned via a coach’s challenge that saw Livers assessed a charging foul. Adding injury to insult, it was the play that wound up with Isaiah Stewart limping off with a right knee issue. The loss of Stewart and the subsequent elevation of Marvin Bagley III to the starting unit in Stewart’s spot meant Livers was called upon to help fill Bagley’s void as the second-unit power forward, as well. Livers’ third triple of the game, which came with 5:27 to play, put the Pistons ahead 90-88. Dwane Casey brought Jerami Grant back with 6:22 to play, but it was Saddiq Bey who exited, not Livers. And Livers stayed on, winding up with a 3-point shot from the corner that would have given the Pistons the lead with less than 30 seconds to play. That one missed and Atlanta came up with the rebound. Livers did not play the overtime period.
BOMBS-AWAY BEY – Saddiq Bey went 2 of 6 from the 3-point arc and remains on pace to establish a Pistons franchise record for triples made in a season. Allan Houston still holds the record of 191 set in the 1995-96 season. Blake Griffin would have eclipsed that mark in all likelihood but for the knee injury that caused him to miss four of the final six games in 2018-19, finishing two shy of tying Houston. Chauncey Billups hit 184 in the 2005-06 season. Bey, who projects at his current pace to finish with 210 3-pointers, required all of 32 seconds to extend his streak of games with a made triple to 39, scoring on the first Pistons possession when he took a pass from Cade Cunningham in the right corner. That’s the fourth-longest active streak in the NBA. Bey has played heavy minutes this season – he’s No. 5 in the NBA in total minutes played – and hasn’t missed one of the first 65 games. After a fast start Monday – nine points on 3 of 5 shooting in the first quarter – Bey might have been feeling the effects of the physical toll of the season. He didn’t score after the first quarter, missing six shots, finishing 3 of 11 in 32 minutes.
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