DETROIT — Fans in attendance for the Detroit Pistons’ exciting overtime victory over the Washington Wizards on Monday let out a collective sigh of relief when Cade Cunningham emerged from the tunnel just moments after exiting the court in the fourth quarter.
The Pistons’ star guard landed awkwardly on his back after going up for a dunk only to be fouled by Cam Whitmore. He started clutching at his back and was slow to get up and move over to the Pistons bench before eventually exiting the court.
He returned to applause after mere moments away, not missing any play time.
There was no indication of whether the fall to the court will turn into anything more serious, particularly given Cunningham returned to the game amid his second straight night playing 40-plus minutes.
But the bigger concern for coach J.B. Bickerstaff was how the situation was handled by the referees.
After Whitmore fouled Cunningham, he walked over and stared him down. That didn’t sit well with Bickerstaff, who ended up receiving a technical foul in the aftermath of the call.
“He was slow to get up, but I didn’t like the way that it happened. that’s the most important thing,” Bickerstaff said. “It’s one thing if you foul a guy. OK, it’s a foul, it’s whatever. But when you take a guy out of the air like that, you don’t walk up on him.
“I thought (the referees) could have done a better job of controlling that situation before giving me a technical foul for it. It’s something that I guess we’ll talk to the league about.”
Cunningham finished out the rest of the game and added 17 points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block after the foul happened, helping to re-energize his team to a win.
While Cunningham was unavailable to speak after the game, returning to the court despite dealing with something Bickerstaff said he could’ve easily sat out for was a testament to his toughness.
“It shows the courage of Cade, the resiliency of Cade, the want to not let his teammates down,” Bickerstaff. “He could have stayed in the back very easily with what he was going through, but he didn’t want to give up. He wanted to continue to fight even when we were down and he led us to the victory.”
Cunningham — the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week — finished the night with a career-high 46 points and a triple-double, joining Michael Jordan as the only players in NBA history with 40-plus points, 10-plus rebounds, 10-plus assists and five-plus steals in a single game.
It wasn’t Cunningham’s most efficient night as he shot 14-of-45 from the field for a short-handed Pistons team. His 31 missed shots were the most by any player in a game since the 1976-1977 merger, according to ESPN Insights.
While that period of the fourth quarter got messy and Cunningham’s injury scare certainly would’ve been tough for the Pistons given their already mounting injury list on a nightly basis, Detroit still came away with the win.
The victory extended the Pistons’ win streak to seven games and they now sit two games ahead of the closest teams in the Eastern Conference standings and just one game behind the NBA-leading Oklahoma City Thunder.
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