The Detroit Pistons staved off elimination with a stunning 93-79 win over the Orlando Magic in Game 6 of this first-round series at Kia Center on Friday. The Magic appeared to have booked their tickets to the Conference semifinals when they led by 24 points in the second half, but spectacularly blew the game, and Paolo Banchero explained what went wrong in his postgame press conference.
“I think they just turned up their defensive pressure,” Banchero said, via the Magic. “I think we just got caught on our heels, and then game pressure builds, and yeah, they went on a pretty big run there, and we didn’t score.”
The Magic led 62-38 with 11:11 left in the third quarter, but fell apart after that. The Pistons outscored them 55-17 the rest of the way to take this series to a do-or-die Game 7.
The Magic scored just 11 points in the third quarter and eight in the fourth. They missed 23 consecutive shots at one point to allow the Pistons to complete a comeback for the ages.
This isn’t the first time this season the Magic have had a long scoring drought, and Banchero was asked for the reason behind them.
“I don’t know,” Banchero said. “I’m not really thinking about it. At this point, it’s all about Game 7.”
You didn’t think there was any chance this series was going seven after the Magic went up 3-1. The Pistons looked lifeless and appeared set to be just the seventh No. 1 seed to be eliminated by the No. 8 seed.
The Magic should have buried them here, but failed miserably at that task. Banchero has to take much of the blame for the collapse, as he is the star. The 23-year-old went a woeful 1-11 from the field in the second half.
Banchero finished the night with 17 points (4-20 FG), 10 rebounds, six assists, and two steals. We have seen some special performances from the one-time All-Star in this series, like his 45-point outing in Game 5, but he failed to step up here. Cade Cunningham outplayed Banchero, as he scored 19 points in the fourth quarter to finish the game with 32.
With Banchero struggling and Franz Wagner still out with a calf injury, the Magic would have looked at Desmond Bane for inspiration, but he had a night to forget as well. Bane went 1-9 from the field after halftime to end with 17 points (7-18 FG), three rebounds, one assist, and two steals.
“I think they were just playing more desperate than us, playing harder than us,” Bane said. “Whether it was offensive rebounds or heating up their pressure to get steals. Really kind of took us out of our stuff, messed with our flow. I mean, it’s going to be hard to win games you score 19 points in a half. I thought a lot of that was because they came out with more energy than us in the second half.”
The Magic should have been able to match the Pistons’ desperation, as they were 24 minutes away from booking their spot in the next round. Bane, concerningly, admitted here that their bad habits caught up to them when asked why their opponents had more energy.
“That’s gotta be our growth and evolution as a team,” Bane said. “You’ve seen that in spurts throughout the season. We’ve tried to grow from it, try to nip it in the bud, but your habits always catch up to you, and I thought that’s what happened tonight.”
Bane said the players are hurting but is confident they’ll be able to bounce back. As for the offensive struggles down the stretch, the 27-year-old thinks they went away from what was working.
“That’s when we gotta settle in, get organized, get back to what was working,” Bane said. “I thought that we kind of slowed the game down, and that’s not really what was working in the first half. We were playing fast, moving the ball side to side, a lot of different guys getting involved. In that second half, we kinda slowed down and started matchup hunting, and that’s tough.
“It’s putting a lot of pressure on our guys to go and make plays time and time again,” Bane continued. “I think that just sharing it and playing a little more together would have helped us.”
It will be very interesting to see how the Magic respond to this stunning defeat. Losing in this manner can break a lot of teams, and this isn’t one with a whole lot of experience. We have seen 13 teams blow 3-1 leads and lose a series in NBA history, and the Magic could well join that list.
Game 7 tips off at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET.
