DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons haven’t been tripped up by injuries in any way.
Despite dealing with a plethora of absences, the Pistons take an eight-game winning streak into Friday night’s NBA Cup game against the Philadelphia 76ers.
The good news for coach J.B. Bickerstaff is veteran forward Isaiah Stewart will be available after a three-game absence to potentially serve as critical piece for their defense.
But, the Pistons will be without star duo Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren for the second straight game as each were downgraded to out for the contest before tip-off.
Cunningham (hip) and Duren (ankle) were the latest to hit the injury report after having strong starts to their season with the All-NBA guard leading the Pistons with 27.5 points and 9.9 assists per game and Duren second averaging 19.4 points and 12 rebounds.
With Detroit’s next game not coming until Monday night against the Indiana Pacers, the hope will be the extra time will be enough to get the pair back on the court.
“We’re hopeful, just the two days off, obviously, will be great for everybody,” Bickerstaff said Friday evening. “It’s just a matter of how guys respond to things. Like, we do more and more each day and then you have to evaluate the next day how they responded to it. We’re just waiting on that so we can take the steps to get them back in the game.”
Before game time, the Pistons already ruled that forward Tobias Harris (right ankle) and guards Jaden Ivey (right knee), Marcus Sasser (right hip) and Ausar Thompson (right ankle) would be out.
Ivey is the only player with much to say about in regards to their injury as he returned to on-court work for the first time since his preseason surgery.
While a return isn’t imminent, he was more involved at shoot around Friday morning.
Harris will miss his seventh straight game due to a right ankle sprain. Bickerstaff and the Pistons “hope” Harris is getting closer to a return.
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