DETROIT — Injuries throughout the first half of the Detroit Pistons’ season have consistently made their jobs more difficult.
Guys go through their injuries, miss time and have to find their rhythm again. And the bench players that pick up the slack — something the Pistons (29-10) have done well this season — have to accept the simple truth their minutes might not be the same every night.
Introducing three starters and a key contributor back into the rotation Thursday night against the Phoenix Suns (24-17) might’ve been one of Detroit’s toughest tasks of the season, to this point.
Cade Cunningham, Tobias Harris and Jalen Duren all made returns from injury and Isaiah Stewart was back after a one-game absence due to illness.
Getting all that talent back is a positive, but when players are working their way back, it isn’t always smooth.
There was some good and bad as the Pistons turned the ball over 11 times in the first half and trailed by as much as 16. Cunningham finished the night shooting 3-of-16 from the field — his worst shooting performance since Jan. 2024 — missing all seven shots from beyond the arc and going 4-of-9 from the foul line.
But it also saw Harris connect on clutch shots down the stretch, Duren post a 16-point, 18-rebound performance and guard Jaden Ivey thrive, reverting to the bench after making two starts in Cunningham’s absence.
And, importantly, it kept Detroit in winning ways despite needing to work through those early hiccups.
“Tonight wasn’t going to be an easy game,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “Obviously, give (the Suns) credit for how good they are in the style they play, but it’s also difficult to bring as many guys back into a lineup as we tried to bring back.
“With how many guys were trying to figure it out, catch their own rhythm throughout that first half, I give our guys a ton of credit for sticking with it like they always do, lifting each other up, supporting each other, everybody taking advantage of their minutes.”
The Pistons were messy through large portions of the first half, struggling to even get clean in-bound plays off and making passes and shots the Suns were able to disrupt for turnovers.
If anything, Detroit was fortunate the halftime deficit was just seven points.
Cunningham said the team needed to “turn everything up” for the second half after coming out flat. He called it a “nasty game,” which featured 31 combined turnovers and 40 combined personal fouls.
The Pistons have seen their fair share of both this season, but it’s rarely led them to struggle so heavily with controlling the style of the game.
“It was a matter of us just finding the rhythm and finding the space and just making the easy play,” Bickerstaff. “Once you make the easy play, because (the Suns) are so committed to stopping the ball and crowding the ball and penetration, they’re going to give you outlets. Later on in the game we found some outlets. We didn’t make as many shots as I would have liked, but I thought we did a great job of doing the right thing and creating those looks for each other.”
The Pistons trusted their defense down the stretch, as they’ve done so many times this season. It worked to great effect as they kept the Suns to 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Detroit ranks first in the NBA in fourth-quarter defense since the start of 2026, holding teams to an average of 22.3 points.
Even as the Pistons shot below 38% from the field and missed eight foul shots in the final period, their suffocating defense was enough to escape with a victory.
“It wasn’t a game we probably drew up that way, but it’s even more of a reason it’s a great win for us,” Cunningham said.
The reality of Thursday not being an easy game never factored into the Pistons believing it was a matchup they were supposed to win.
But when they experienced an uneven first half where communication was lacking and execution of their game plan was rough at best, it pushed them to clean things up and get back to their stye of stingy defense.
“We all have the same goal in mind, we all want to get to the same place, so really it’s just about looking at each other and locking each other in,” Cunningham said. “Get on the same page.”
Outside the returners, Ivey earned plenty of praise for the role he played in stabilizing the team in limited minutes.
He’s had one of the toughest roles all season due to his return from last year’s major injury and some additional time away after an arthroscopic procedure done just ahead of the season.
Ivey was an every-game starter in his junior NBA season until injury, but now he’s coming off the bench, playing a fraction of the minutes he used to see.
It’s going to hard for a player to be consistent in that situation, but Ivey takes it in stride and takes his chances like Thursday night, scoring 16 points in 17 minutes on 75% shooting.
“Just doing my job, doing my role, kind of just happens naturally when I’m on the court and playing to the best of my abilities every opportunity that I have,” Ivey said." Tonight I was able to hit shots that I, a couple games ago, missed and I made them tonight, so that was great and we won.”
There was quite a lot going against the Pistons that losing to a Suns team with a winning record the same night three starters are returning at the same time wouldn’t have been outrageous.
But in most of Detroit’s losses this season, Bickerstaff has been proud of the team’s ability to give themselves a chance to win, even when the game hasn’t gone as planned.
What’s making the Pistons stand out at the top of the Eastern Conference is still finding ways to win on those difficult nights, just as they showed in their 29th victory of the season.