Detroit Pistons drop 27th straight for NBA single-season record losing streak

DETROIT – Detroit Pistons coach Monty Williams admitted that he bore the ultimate responsibility as his team set a National Basketball Association (NBA) record for futility on Dec 26, their 118-112 home defeat by the Brooklyn Nets stretching their losing streak to 27, the longest ever in a single season.

Cade Cunningham scored 41 points for the determined Pistons (2-28), but it was still not enough to give them a first victory since Oct 28.

Detroit have now surpassed the 26-game losing streaks of the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers and the 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers.

An iconic franchise who won NBA titles in 1989, 1990 and 2004, the Pistons are now one defeat away from matching the longest NBA losing streak – the 28-game slide of the Sixers that spanned the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.

Williams said that he was mostly to blame for their woeful form, and added it was a “heavy” load for everyone to carry.

“You have to be real about where we are,” he said. “Nobody wants something like this attached to them... my players are playing their hearts out.

“And the bottom line is, it is my job. Coaches are graded on their records.”

Cameron Johnson scored 24 points to lead Brooklyn and Mikal Bridges downed 12 of his 21 in the fourth quarter as the Nets thwarted the Pistons.

In a fourth quarter that featured four lead changes, back-to-back three-pointers from Bojan Bogdanovic and Cunningham saw the Pistons take a 97-92 lead with 8min 10sec remaining.

But the Nets responded with a 13-0 scoring run to take the lead for good.

Cunningham’s driving lay-up pulled the Pistons within two points with less than a minute to play, but they could not get over the hump.

Bogdanovic scored 23 points, Jalen Duren added 12 points and 15 rebounds and Alec Burks added 15 points off the bench for Detroit.

The Nets, meanwhile, had six players score in double figures.

As the Nets were polishing off the scoring from the free-throw line, fans at the Little Caesars Arena were again chanting “Sell the team”.

Pistons owner Tom Gores has already branded those calls “ridiculous” but conceded last week that something had to change – although he did not elaborate on what that might be.

“It weighs on us every day,” Cunningham said, but added that his message to teammates was one of solidarity.

“We need to continue to lean on each other and continue to push each other and hold each other accountable more than ever now.

“A lot of this load is trusted to me, on the court and in the locker room.

“Every day, I try to lead the squad, and I haven’t been successful at that – 2-28. It’s only right that I speak for it and be the face of it.”

Well aware of what was at stake, the Pistons started with plenty of energy, racing to a 9-1 lead.

Duren, sidelined since Dec 6 with a sprained ankle, returned and immediately made his presence felt, throwing down two dunks and an alley-oop lay-up off a feed from Cunningham in the first quarter.

Bogdanovic scored 11 in the first period for the Pistons, who led by as many as 14 on the way to a 31-25 lead through one quarter.

By half-time, however, the Nets were up 61-54.

But after Brooklyn stretched their lead to 11 early in the third quarter, the Pistons hit back, a Duren lay-up and two free throws from Bogdanovic giving them a 77-76 lead.

Cunningham scored 18 points in the third and 37 in the second half but the crowd of nearly 20,000 went home disappointed again.

“To have a start like that and then kind of let it go in the second quarter – that’s the quarter that put us in the hole,” Williams added.

“I think we had six turnovers in the second quarter. That’s something that has plagued us all year long.” AFP