One season after climbing out of the NBA’s cellar, the Detroit Pistons are proving that 2024-25 was no fluke. Regardless of the personnel they’ve put on the court, the Pistons have found ways to win games, and at 10-2, they sit atop the Eastern Conference entering Friday’s Emirates NBA Cup play, 2.5 games ahead of a quartet of teams.
One of those four teams is the Philadelphia 76ers, who are off to a hot start despite missing Paul George for the entire season and Joel Embiid for several games. They’ve slowed down since racing out to a 5-1 start, but they’re coming off of a win over the Boston Celtics.
Tonight, the two teams will face off in each team’s second game of NBA Cup East Group B action. Detroit is 1-0 in group stage play after beating the Brooklyn Nets, while Philadelphia suffered a one-point loss to the Celtics. The game will tip at 7:30 p.m. ET in Detroit.
The Pistons are 4.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-185 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 230.5. The 76ers are +154 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down the clash and offer my prediction.
Philadelphia 76ers at Detroit Pistons preview, prediction
Detroit has had several players miss time with injuries despite its hot streak. Tobias Harris suffered an ankle sprain and has been out for the last six games, Cade Cunningham missed the last game with a hip injury, Ausar Thompson has missed the last two games with an ankle injury, Jalen Duren didn’t play on Wednesday with an ankle injury, and Jaden Ivey has yet to make his season debut while recovering from the broken fibula he suffered on New Year’s Day. On Wednesday, the Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls behind Paul Reed’s 28-point, 13-rebound masterpiece, Duncan Robinson’s 23 points, and Daniss Jenkins’ 18 points and 12 assists. It was one of the more impressive and gritty wins that any team has had this season, given the circumstances.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, has leaned heavily on Tyrese Maxey. So far this season, the 25-year-old is playing 40.5 minutes per game, the most of any player since Monta Ellis averaged 41.4 minutes per game in 2009-10, and as a result, he ranks fourth in the league with 32.1 points per game. He hasn’t been alone, though; while VJ Edgecombe made headlines with a hot start to his rookie season before slowing down, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Quentin Grimes have each chipped in at least 17 points per game. The 76ers managed a win over Boston in their most recent game despite both Maxey and Edgecombe having poor shooting nights, as Justin Edwards chipped in 22 points off the bench.
76ers at Pistons pick, best bet
Duren and Cunningham are both questionable for tonight’s game, while Thompson and Harris remain out. Thompson, in particular, is a big loss: he’s improved dramatically on offense while playing his usual lockdown defense, and this season, the Pistons have been 6.8 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor than off. They required overtime (and 46 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists, and five steals on 46 shots from Cunningham) to beat the woeful Washington Wizards without him on Monday, and their perimeter defense was notably worse against CJ McCollum than it might have been otherwise. Without Thompson and Duren, Detroit allowed the Bulls to attempt 34 shots at the rim, though only 58.8% of them went in.
Interior defense will once again be the key for the Pistons tonight. They’ve been dominant at the rim this season, limiting opponents to just 58.6% accuracy in the restricted area, and of the 168 players who have played in at least nine games and defended at least three shots per game within six feet, backup center Isaiah Stewart (who’s questionable for tonight with an ankle injury that has held him out for the last three games) and Cunningham have allowed among the 10 lowest shooting percentages. This season, Philadelphia has gotten downhill, attempting the 10th-most shots at the rim, but it’s made them at the fourth-lowest rate. Maxey and Edgecombe have both made fewer than 60% of their restricted-area tries, so they could both be in for inefficient nights tonight. Grimes, a 67.6% finisher at the rim this season, should be fine.
The 76ers have allowed a similar shot profile. Embiid has played just 52 minutes so far this month because of knee soreness, and without him manning the middle, Philadelphia has allowed the sixth-most shot attempts in the restricted area. However, it has limited opponents to the sixth-lowest percentage on such shots. Andre Drummond was one of the worst high-volume rim protectors in basketball last season, but between his size and Adem Bona’s and Grimes’ skills, the 76ers have done a fine enough job protecting the paint by committee. Philadelphia will need all hands on deck to contain a Detroit team that loves to get downhill.
Any normalization of shooting luck should benefit the Pistons. This season, the 76ers have conceded the sixth-most wide-open three-point attempts per game and have gotten lucky that opponents have canned them at the sixth-lowest rate. By contrast, Detroit has allowed the eighth-fewest uncontested threes, but opponents have converted at an average clip. Offensively, it’s the same story: the Pistons have generated more wide-open threes than Philadelphia has and has made them at the fourth-lowest rate, while the 76ers have drilled more than five-11ths of their unguarded treys. That won’t completely swing back the other way — Philadelphia has better pure shooters than Detroit — but Cunningham has gotten unlucky and Maxey has gotten lucky.
The 76ers have enough that they could win because Maxey, Edgecombe, Grimes, and Edwards are all capable of getting hot. Still, the fact that the Pistons have barely regressed in rim protection without Stewart and even without Duren suggests that their success is more a matter of J.B. Bickerstaff’s system, which produced some elite defenses in Cleveland, than of any individual player. Winning nine consecutive games in the NBA is hard, but this Detroit team, even without Thompson, is good enough to get it done.
