Detroit's Cade Cunningham hopes tough playoff lessons pay off next season and beyond

DETROIT (AP) — Earlier this week, Cade Cunningham said he had learned more in four playoff games than he had picked up in the entire regular season.

Two games later, the lessons have only gotten tougher.

On Tuesday, the Pistons went into Madison Square Garden for Game 5 and kept their season alive with a 106-103 victory. It was Detroit's second win in New York.

On Thursday, though, it was another crushing last-second loss that ended Detroit's postseason run. Jalen Brunson hit a 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds left to put the Knicks up 116-113 and Cunningham's pass to Malik Beasley sailed out of bounds as time expired.

“The biggest thing I've learned about the playoffs is that you have to raise your attention to details,” Cunningham said. “Every possession means so much more than it does during the regular season, so you have to do everything stronger, faster and a little more together.”

Cunningham didn't have his best game on Thursday. He finished with 23 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, but he missed all eight 3-point attempts and turned the ball over three times.

“There are so many plays that I would love to have back,” he said. “The turnovers, but there are so many little things that we could have done better.”

In the long run, the Pistons had a successful season by any reasonable standard. A franchise that hadn't broken 25 wins in the last five seasons jumped from 14-68 to 44-38 and the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.

They didn't beat the Knicks, but they took them to six games in only the second NBA postseason series to have four straight games decided by three points or less. Three of them were Detroit home losses by 2, 1 and 3 points.

“This was an amazing atmosphere and the crowd was hype,” Beasley said. “Next year, we have to make sure we protect home court. We got two wins at the Garden, and if we could have gotten one here, we could be closing this out.”

The Pistons have a lot of work to do before they take another major step. They aren't consistent enough shooting 3-pointers — the starters went 2-17 in Game 6 — and they struggle to keep teams off the offensive glass. The Knicks turned 13 offensive rebounds into 18 points on Thursday.

But those plans can wait for a few weeks.

“There's disappointment right now, because these guys don't have an opportunity to keep doing what they've been doing this season,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. "But this is great experience, because you can't get playoff experience without getting playoff experience, and these guys did a tremendous job of learning from moment to moment and game to game.

“They've learned what impacts winning.”

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