By Jacob Richman, Tribune News Service
The Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers had two thrilling matchups over the past week, splitting the results and offering a sneak peak of what could be a matchup in this year’s playoffs.
The home team won each game as the Pistons were victorious in overtime at Little Caesars Arena on Friday before the Cavaliers survived a late comeback from Detroit at Rocket Arena.
Both matchups have featured intense play, but off the court the Cavaliers drew some attention as cleveland.com reported an anonymous Cleveland player said after Friday’s game that the Pistons “aren’t in our class.”
The words caught some attention on social media after the game and before Tuesday’s matchup, coach J.B. Bickerstaff was asked for his response.
The second-year Pistons coach didn’t need many words to react.
“I have no response,” Bickerstaff said. “If you mean it, don’t say it anonymously.”
It’s no surprise that a playoff caliber team like Cleveland — or Detroit for that matter — would have plenty of confidence in their ability to compete.
The Pistons (45-15) firmly believe the Eastern Conference runs through them right now as they’ve held tight to the top spot since early November. But the Cavaliers (39-24) have now backed up some of their words by winning the rematch with a returning James Harden.
To suggest the two teams are separated by a considerable margin is hard to give much credence, given they split the regular-season series 2-2 and the past two games have come down to the very end.
There are no more regular-season meeting for the Central Division foes, so if there’s going to be more to this saga, it’s going to come in the playoffs.
With the Pistons holding the No. 1 seed and Cleveland currently the No. 4, a second-round playoff matchup would be in the cards if the first round went chalk.
It’s hard to think of a better way to decide which team is a class above than a playoff series.
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