PHOENIX — After suffering one of their worst losses of the season, the Detroit Pistons bounced back.
The Pistons (12-17) defeated the Phoenix Suns on the road, 133-125. Malik Beasley hit a big 3-pointer with 2:11 on the clock in the final period, giving the Pistons a 125-119 cushion after the Suns got within three points. Jaden Ivey’s free throws with 1:16 left then extended their lead to eight, icing the game.
The final dagger belonged to Cade Cunningham, who knocked down a pull-up 3 to give the Pistons a seven-point lead with 33 seconds to play.
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It was a defensively lax night for both teams, with Phoenix shooting 57.5% overall and 48.3% (14-for-29) from 3 and the Pistons shooting 55.1% overall and 48.7% (19-for-39) from 3.
“Our guys handled it well,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “When you’ve got guys like KD (Kevin Durant) and Brad Beal out there, the veteran players they have, the role players, the shotmakers, they’re going to create something. They’re going to go on a run. What I thought we did a really good job of in the fourth quarter is, we continued to do things to score the basketball. We didn’t get stagnant, didn’t have runs where we’d turn the ball over and didn’t get looks at the rim. It was a great learning lesson for us, how we can play when teams make a run, how we counter their execution. I thought we did a good job.”
Cunningham led the Pistons with 28 points and 13 assists. Ivey returned from a two-game absence with left knee inflammation and tallied 20 points, eight assists and eight rebounds. They had no answer for Durant, however, who scored 43 points. Bradley Beal added 26 points. The Suns were without Grand Rapids native Devin Booker, due to groin soreness.
The Pistons dominated the first quarter, building an early 41-26 lead. They knocked down 63% of their field goals and had 11 assists and three turnovers — a complete flip from their horrid start against the Utah Jazz on Thursday, in which they trailed by 29 after the opening period before losing, 126-119.
They were aided by the Suns’ discombobulation, scoring 22 points off of 11 Suns turnovers in the first half. For the game, the Pistons finished with 33 points off 19 Suns turnovers. Phoenix closed the half with momentum, though, using a 12-0 run to slash a 15-point lead to three with less than a minute left in the half.
The Suns cut the lead to five points again, 115-110, with just over four minutes remaining overall, on a driving layup by Durant. Beal missed a short jumper with roughly 2:30 to play that would’ve whittled it down to three, but they retained possession and Durant drew a shooting foul on Cunningham, knocking down both to cut the Pistons’ lead to 122-119 before Beasley’s 3.
Ivey aggressive in return
After ripping an offensive rebound away from Mason Plumlee’s outreached arms, Ivey took the ball behind the arc before turning on a dime to glide past Plumlee for a layup late in the first. After missing two games, Ivey looked energized in his return. He led the Pistons with 10 points, four assists and four rebounds in the first quarter, including three offensive boards.
“I thought he was great,” Cunningham said. “I literally just told him that. We missed that spark that he has. He started off with a few offensive rebounds that got us going, made a ton of great reads. He was everywhere.”
The Suns cut the Pistons’ lead to five at halftime, after leading by 15. Ivey helped the Pistons stay in control, opening the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers before adding a short jumper late in the third, extending the lead back to 11.
It was a bounce-back game for the third-year guard, who shot just 32.3% overall in five games before missing the Pistons’ previous two. He gave them the additional offensive punch they missed in their loss to the Jazz, knocking down timely 3s and matching his season high with eight assists.
Hardaway finding rhythm again
He was the Pistons’ most effective shooter through the first few weeks of the season. But after missing three games with a head injury, Tim Hardaway Jr. hadn’t quite been himself since.
Through the first 12 games of the season, he shot 45.7% from 3. That slumped to 27.7% in his 13 games after returning from the injury report. Through his extended slump, Bickerstaff stuck with him in the starting lineup.
Hardaway thrived in Monday’s win over the Miami Heat, knocking down two 3-pointers in the first period and three-straight in the final moments of overtime to deliver the Pistons a home victory. He shot just 2-for-9 from 3 against Utah, but Saturday was his second time knocking down at least four 3-pointers in three games — and second time since he went 4-for-8 in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 4.
He got going immediately against the Suns, knocking down all three of his attempts in the first period.
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Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on X @omarisankofa.
