Cade Cunningham scored 32 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Detroit Pistons erased a 24-point deficit to beat the Orlando Magic 93-79 on Friday, forcing a decisive Game 7 in Detroit on Sunday.
The comeback was sudden and severe: Orlando missed 23 consecutive field goals and scored just one point in more than 10 minutes of basketball while Detroit turned a 71-54 Magic advantage into an 80-72 lead and finished with the eight-point victory. Cunningham poured in 19 of his points in the fourth quarter as Detroit completed the rally at home.
The numbers underline what the outcome means. The series is now tied 3-3 after Game 6; Detroit had trailed 3-1 and faced elimination, while Orlando had been trying to close out the series after taking a 3-2 lead. The win gives the Pistons a chance to win a playoff series for the first time since 2008, and it denies the Magic a first series victory since 2010.
Cunningham delivered the game’s clear message on the floor and afterward. "Never say die, simple as that. I mean, Detroit grit, it’s what we’ve been talking about all year," he said, and later added, "Thank God we get to take this back to the crib. It’s gonna be loud in Detroit, and we got to finish our business." Detroit enters Sunday as an 8.5-point favorite on the spread, per BetMGM Sportsbook, with the decisive Game 7 scheduled to tip at 3:30 p.m. ET.
The collapse deepened around Orlando’s leading young scorer. Paolo Banchero, who had exploded for 45 points in Game 5, managed just a 4-for-20 shooting night in Game 6 and went 0-for-9 from 3-point range. The Magic’s effective field goal percentage in the game — and across the series data cited after the game — sat at 46.2, the worst mark among the 16 first-round teams per NBA Advanced Stats.
That contrast — Banchero’s Game 5 explosion and Game 6 futility, Orlando’s long drought of makes, and Detroit’s sudden surge — is the tension that will run into Sunday. Detroit rode the fourth-quarter spurt; Orlando’s offense that had produced a 24-point lead stalled for more than 10 minutes and never recovered. The Pistons’ ability to turn a 71-54 deficit into an 80-72 lead before closing the game underscored how fast momentum swung in a series that has already traded leads and fortunes.
The stakes are plain and historical edges add subtext. The Pistons became the last No. 1 seed to come back from a 1-3 deficit in the first round in 2003 — and that team did it against the Magic. A Game 7 now offers Detroit the chance to complete a comeback it began when it fell behind 3-1 in the series. For Orlando, which had been seeking its first playoff series win since 2010, the long drought will stretch or end in Detroit on Sunday, and it will do so without Franz Wagner, who is ruled out for Game 7.
Cunningham’s night and the Pistons’ rally rewrote the immediate story but left the simple, consequential question standing: which version of Orlando will show up in Detroit — the team that scored 45 points from Banchero in Game 5 or the one that missed 23 straight field goals and managed a single point in an extended stretch of Game 6? For now, Detroit’s back-to-back urgency and Cunningham’s fourth-quarter finishing — "Never say die, simple as that" — have pushed the series to a winner-take-all Sunday, and Detroit will try to finish what it started by drawing this series even from the brink.
