DETROIT — Cade Cunningham came through for the Pistons when they needed him. With Detroit teetering on the brink of elimination, Cunningham outdueled Orlando's Paolo Banchero in a sensational scoring matchup of former No. 1 overall picks.
Cunningham had a franchise playoff-record 45 points and the top-seeded Pistons held off the eighth-seeded Magic for a 116-109 win on Wednesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series, avoiding elimination for at least a couple of days.
“We dug ourselves a hole and now it’s time to climb our way out,” Cunningham said. “It’s possible.”
Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home on Friday night. If the Pistons win their first road game of the series, they will host a decisive Game 7 on Sunday.
Banchero also scored 45 points for a playoff career high — but missed 7 of 12 free throws — and fell one point short of equaling the franchise postseason record shared by Tracy McGrady and Dwight Howard.
The Magic were out-rebounded by 16 and made just 16 of 30 free throws.
“We got to be better on the glass and obviously, better on the free-throw line,” said Banchero, drafted No. 1 overall by Orlando in 2022. “If we make our free throws, we got a real chance of winning the game. We lost by seven, and missed 14 free throws. That’s the game.”
Cunningham set a single-game playoff scoring record for Detroit that had stood since Dave Bing had 44 points in 1968. Isiah Thomas approached that mark with a 43-point performance in 1988.
In NBA history there was only one other playoff game with two players scoring 45 or more.
Donovan Mitchell scored 51 points for Utah in a win over Denver in 2020, while the Nuggets' Jamal Murray had 50 points.
When Detroit drafted Cunningham first overall in 2021, it was hoping he would have games like this one.
He was 13 of 23 from the field, made a playoff career-high five 3-pointers and was 14 of 14 at the line.
“We’re going to see this a long time,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He’s going to do a lot of special things.”
The 24-year-old Cunningham came up short in late-game situations with the ball earlier in the series and in last year's first-round series against the New York Knicks, but he was clutch in key moments to extend the matchup with the Magic.
The Pistons never trailed, going ahead by 17 points in the first half and by 15 early in the fourth quarter.
The Magic pulled within three points on Banchero’s sixth 3-pointer with 1:09 left.
On the ensuing possession after Ausar Thompson hustled for an offensive rebound, Cunningham made a step-back, 16-foot jumper to help seal it.
“Not everybody is blessed with those opportunities to have pressure and have things on the line like that,” Cunningham said. “I’m just thankful for it and trying to make the most out of it.
“We’ve had a great season so far and none of us want it to end.”
The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.
Detroit's comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat six years ago — in the same series that featured Mitchell and Murray each scoring 50-plus point — and they became the first team in the league to do it twice in one postseason.
“You don't want to put yourself in this situation, but this is what we expected,” Bickerstaff said. “When our backs are against the wall, we come out swinging. We come out kicking. We come out scratching, biting, clawing.”
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