Detroit Pistons set NBA record with 27th straight loss،
DETROIT — It's a story few fans inside Little Caesars Arena were looking forward to Tuesday night, but the Detroit Pistons couldn't avoid NBA infamy, losing their 27th straight game with a 118-112 loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
This is the most consecutive losses in a single season in league history. The 76ers hold the overall record, losing 28 games in a row, but that spanned the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
Detroit hasn't won a game since its Oct. 28 home opener against Chicago, and is now 2-28 on the season.
Entering Tuesday's game, Pistons coach Monty Williams couldn't avoid the topic of the all-time losing mark — something he said he didn't want his name be associated – but it continues to weigh heavily on the franchise.
“Again, when you look at the records, you think of the coaches, but I'm sure the players don't want that attached to the name on the jersey,” Williams said. “Was it heavy? It's been heavy for a while. That's just the nature of this kind of losing streak and it's not going to change because we gauge the level of it, we have to do what we have to do. to change it.”
Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 overall pick in 2021, finished with a game-high 41 points, along with 9 rebounds and 5 assists. He had 37 points in the second half alone, but he has now lost all 10 of his career games by scoring 30 or more points – the longest early career streak in NBA history, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information.
After the game, Cunningham passionately addressed the team in the locker room about the things they needed to fix, while telling his teammates not to “jump ship” and to “stay together” as the losses continue to pile up.
“I don't think what I said was positive, I think it's just being real… there's nothing positive about this current situation that we've put ourselves in, that's why we have to dig deep and get out of it,'” Cunningham said. “You can't escape it. This weighs on us every day, I mean everywhere. It weighs on us.”
The Pistons got off to a fast start in the first quarter, holding a double-digit lead (14 points) for the first time in a game since November 12 (against the Bulls). But they committed six turnovers in the second quarter and went into halftime with a score of 61-54.
They were down 71-60 at 8:35 of the third quarter after a floater from the Nets' Cam Johnson, but got within three heading into the fourth as Cunningham went off for 18 points. Fans chanted “Let's go to the Pistons” during the final frame, trying to rally the home team as Cunningham hit a triple at 8:10 to give Detroit a 97-92 lead.
But the Nets closed the game on a 26-15 run to etch the 2023-24 Pistons into the history books. As the final seconds ticked down, a crowd of fans began chanting, “Sell the team! Sell the team! although Pistons owner Tom Gores was not in the building to hear it.
The chants did not please some players.
“We have the right people in this locker room and most importantly, I just heard the fans talking about selling the team and in my mind it's like what we talked about, who is with us? Who is really with us ?” said sophomore guard Jaden Ivey, who finished with 9 points and 4 assists. “The crowd was incredible, I thought, but there are some who [I’m wondering] who is really with us?
“Singing 'sell the team' I thought it was a bit too much because we're growing and obviously the record and a lot of people expected us to be better at that point in the season, but “We're going to keep rowing the boat and we're going to forget what everyone is saying and stay together and play for each other.”
