The Detroit Pistons trailed the New York Knicks by a single point with 11.1 seconds left in Game 4 of their first-round series on Sunday. They put the ball in their best player’s hands, but Cade Cunningham missed a midrange jumper over OG Anunoby.
Sometimes, that’s how it goes. If that were all that happened on the final possession, then Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff would not have been screaming at the officials after the buzzer sounded on their 94-93 loss.
Bickerstaff was mad about what happened after Cunningham’s miss: There was a scramble for the loose ball, and it bounced to Detroit’s Tim Hardaway Jr. in the corner. Hardaway got New York’s Josh Hart up in the air with a pump fake, then absorbed contact from Hart as he attempted a 3-pointer. The officials did not call a foul, Hardaway’s shot drew nothing but air and the Knicks escaped with a win — and a 3-1 lead in the series.
“Cade got his shot,” Bickerstaff told reporters. “He got to his spot and he got to his shot and had the shot that he liked and that we all liked. I trust Cade to take that shot 100 times in a row. And again you go back and look at the film. [Hart] leaves his feet. There’s contact on Tim Hardaway’s jump shot. I don’t know any other way around it. There’s contact on his jump shot. The guy leaves his feet, he’s at Timmy’s mercy. I repeat: There’s contact on his jump shot.”
Hart did not deny that there was contact.
“Did I make contact with him? Yeah, I made contact with him,” Hart told reporters, via The Athletic’s Fred Katz. “Was it legal? I don’t know! We’ll see in the Last Two Minute Report.”
It turns out that we don’t have to wait for the L2M Report. David Guthrie, Game 4’s crew chief, told a pool reporter that the officials missed the call.
“During live play, it was judged that Josh Hart made a legal defensive play,” Guthrie said. “After postgame review, we observed that Hart makes body contact that is more than marginal to Hardaway Jr. and a foul should have been called.”
Asked about the final possession, Pistons guard Malik Beasley said, “You tell me. What do you think that was?” Beasley then said that all they can do is get ready for the next game, and they will be ready.
“Our back’s against the wall, we love that,” Beasley said. “We’ll make it happen and do what we gotta do, bring it back here. One game at a time.”
The way Detroit started the game, it’s a small wonder that it was in a position to attempt a potential game-winner. It trailed by as many as 16 points in the second quarter, committed 12 turnovers in the first half and made just two 3s in the first 34 minutes of the game. (The Pistons shot 7 for 29 — 24.1% — from 3-point range overall, but Bickerstaff said he “liked our looks.”) Detroit was able to take an 11-point lead a few minutes into the fourth quarter, though, by locking down New York defensively and getting some timely buckets.
Cunningham finished with 25 points on 11-of-23 shooting, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and four blocks, but turned the ball over seven times in his 42 minutes. After going 10 for 12 from the free-throw line in Detroit’s Game 2 victory, Cunningham attempted only three free throws in Game 3 and four in Game 4. To Bickerstaff, this is not enough.
Officials “do let you play more physical [in the playoffs] — well, some people get to play more physical, I’ll say that,” Bickerstaff said. “I think these past couple games, it’s kind of hard for me to believe that Cade only gets to the free-throw line four times, as much as he drives and gets to the paint.”
Bickerstaff said it is “a little surprising” that Cunningham doesn’t get to the line more.
“I think sometimes he’s refereed different because he’s a big guard and they treat him a little bit differently, but as much as he drives, he should get more of those whistles,” he said. “But there is more physicality. There is more grabbing, holding and all that. And again we are fine with that. We like to play physical, we like that style of basketball, you won’t hear us whining about it.”
Regardless of Cunningham’s free throw attempts and the non-call at the end, Detroit could have evened the series if it had played a cleaner game. Bickerstaff noted that there were situations in which “we helped a little bit too much in positions where we didn’t have to” — a play in which Jalen Duren helped off of Karl-Anthony Towns leading to an open 3 comes to mind, as it took place with less than three minutes to play and cut the Pistons’ lead from four points to one.
Bickerstaff also said that they need to “do better with our spacing,” as many of their turnovers “came from playing in small spaces.”
Detroit can surely improve in these areas in Game 5 on Tuesday. Now that it’s down 3-1, though, it has much less room for error.
