DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Pistons have rebuilt their franchise in two years, coming back from one of the worst stretches in NBA history to earn top seeding in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Oddsmakers, though, are not expecting them to make a deep run,
The Pistons trail Boston, Cleveland and New York as favorites to win the East and are behind six teams in the league projected to win the the NBA championship.
“We’ve always been underdogs," Pistons power forward Isaiah Stewart said. “We're still hunting. We like that.”
Detroit will host the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic at home on Sunday night.
The Pistons have not opened a postseason series at home since 2008, which is also the last year they advanced in the playoffs and the last time they won a playoff game in the Motor City.
Detroit's 10-game home postseason losing streak is the longest in league history, one more setback than Philadelphia endured from 1968 to 1971. The drought dates to a win over Boston in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals at The Palace of Auburn Hills on May 26, 2008.
The Magic, meanwhile, earned a spot in the playoffs the hard way this week.
They lost at Philadelphia 109-97 in a play-in game on Wednesday and routed Charlotte 121-90 at home on Friday night.
“You either had a chance to end your season, or you start a new one,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “These guys made the commitment to each other, to our staff, that we want to keep playing basketball.”
Orlando also is shooting to advance in the playoffs for the first time in a while.
The Magic have been eliminated in the first round two straight years and six times since reaching the 2010 Eastern Conference finals.
Detroit was in the playoffs last year for the first time since 2019 and ended a league-record, 15-game postseason losing streak before being eliminated by the New York Knicks in Game 6.
The three-time, championship-winning franchise set the NBA's single-season losing streak two years ago when they led the league in losses for a second straight season.
Pistons wing Ausar Thompson, one of the NBA's top defenders, said the team has higher expectations for this postseason than anyone does outside the organization.
“We believe not only can we come out of the East but win it all,” Thompson said.
The series matches up No. 1 overall picks from two straight years.
Detroit drafted Cade Cunningham in 2021. The point guard will likely make an All-NBA team for the second year in a row, winning an appeal to be eligible after falling one game short of the league's 65-game rule.
Cunningham, who has always scored and set up teammates with savvy play, has steadily improved defensively to potentially defend any position.
“He’s an all-around basketball player that can impact the game on both ends of the floor,” said Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, who was named coach of the year by the National Basketball Coaches Association on Friday.
Orlando selected Paolo Banchero in 2022. After the forward was voted Rookie of the Year and a 2024 All-Star, he averaged a career-high 25.9 points last season. Banchero had career highs in field goal percentage and rebounds per game this year.
Banchero made more than half of his attempts and scored 25 points against the Hornets, bouncing back after missing 15 of 22 shots and turning the ball over six times in a loss the 76ers that put the Magic on the brink of elimination.
“Great players, you know, you’ve got to respond,” he said. “That’s what they pay you to do.”
The Pistons and Magic split their four-game season series, usually matching up when at least one team was missing a key player.
Defensively, they struggled to slow down the opposing star in three games.
Cunningham, who missed the last matchup earlier this month recovering from a collapsed lung, had 39 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists in one game and combined for 59 points and 21 assists in the two other games.
Banchero averaged 26.3 points — four more than his season average — in three games. He missed one matchup with a groin strain.
Detroit and Orlando have physical, defensive-minded teams that led them to making less than 51% of shots in each of the four games during the regular season.
“Orlando has big, physical guys that can get to the free throw line a ton and put a ton of stress on your paint, whether it’s in drives or offensive rebounding,” Bickerstaff said. "They use that size and length on the defensive end of the floor as well. They’ll be physical with you, pressure you, and make it difficult.”
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Orlando Magic guard Desmond Bane (3) looks for a shot as he gets in front of Detroit Pistons guard Ausar Thompson (9) during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Detroit Pistons forward Paul Reed (7) looks to pass the ball as he gets caught between Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero (5) and center Wendell Carter Jr. (34) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero, right, makes a move to get around Detroit Pistons guard Ausar Thompson during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Progressive leaders from around the globe gathered in Barcelona on Saturday to try and galvanize their forces and defend the multilateral rules-based order in a world turning to the right and violently torn by superpowers.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, hosted two overlapping events about democracy and progressive politics in Spain’s second-largest city.
Democrats U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were both present alongside the leaders of Brazil, South Africa and high-ranking officials from other left-leaning governments.
While no foreign leader criticized Trump by name in public, the staunchly unilateral position of the American president that breaks with decades of U.S. foreign policy, including his derision of NATO and the United Nations, hung over the meetings.
“We all see the attacks against the multilateral system, the repeated attempts to undermine international law and the dangerous normalization of the use of force,” Sánchez said.
Trump again lashed out on Saturday on social media at Sánchez, who has faced Trump’s scorn for not allowing the U.S. to use jointly operated military bases in Spain for operations related to the Iran war and for refusing to raise military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP.
“Has anybody looked at how badly the country of Spain is doing. Their financial numbers, despite contributing almost nothing to NATO and their military defense, are absolutely horrendous. Sad to watch!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Spain, like the U.S. and other developed countries, is in debt, but it has one of the world’s leading economies under Sánchez.
Sánchez told the rally of progressive politicians and party members held later on Saturday that the populist right “screams and shouts not because they are winning but because they know their time is running out.
“They know their vision of how the world should be ordered is falling apart due to the tariffs and wars,” he said. “Their embrace of climate change denial, of xenophobia, or sexism is their greatest error.
“They have tried again and again to make us embarrassed of our beliefs. That ends now. From now on they can be the ones who feel ashamed.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and other leaders and officials, including Cabinet members from the United Kingdom and Germany, were in attendance at the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy that kicked off Saturday's double-header of political events at the Barcelona convention center.
Later in the day, Sánchez, Lula and Ramaphosa stayed put to attend the inaugural Global Progressive Mobilization, where some 6,000 left-leaning elected officials, policy analysts and activists exchanged ideas.
“The far right is international, so we must be too,” German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told a crowd of activists.
Sen. Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, spoke at the progressive rally and he didn’t shy away from blasting Trump while celebrating the loss of power of Trump's ally Viktor Orbán in elections in Hungary last week.
“Donald Trump is out to end our democracy,” Murphy said. “We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover, we are in the middle of it.”
But, he said, “Americans are watching what is happening across the world, and the victory in Hungary just one week ago lifted our sails.”
Walz, Kamala Harris' vice presidential candidate who has faced a violent ICE migration crackdown in Minnesota, threw barbs at U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who campaigned for Orbán and has backed far-right parties in Europe.
“Unlike our current vice president, I’m not here to arrogantly lecture or scold you, I am not here to pick a fight with the Pope or host a rally for any local wannabe authoritarians,” Walz said.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders all sent video messages played at the rally.
Among concrete proposals to come from the events, Ramaphosa said South Africa will present a draft resolution to establish an International Panel on Inequality, aiming to tackle the growing wealth gap both within and between nations, to the U.N. General Assembly in September.
Sheinbaum plugged her idea that governments commit to spending the equivalent of 10% of their military budgets on reforestation projects.
“Each year, instead of planting the seeds of war, we will plant the seeds of life,” she said.
Sánchez argued for the importance of regulating social media to stop the spread of hate speech and disinformation. His government also said that it is working with Lula's Brazil on a tax for the ultrarich.
Lula, who met with Sánchez in a bilateral summit on Friday in Barcelona, kept the focus on how to invigorate the progressive moment. He avoided naming Trump except when he called for U.N. Security Council members to “fulfill their obligation and guarantee peace.”
“Stop this madness of war because the world cannot bear any more wars,” Lula said.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, left, reacts next to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the end of the Global Progressive Mobilisation summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., delivers a speech at the Global Progressive Mobilisation summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, applauds as he poses with attendees at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit, in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, poses with attendees, at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, poses for a photo next to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, and his wife wife Rosangela Lula da Silva, at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit, in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, greets Colombia's President Gustavo Petro at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, greets Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center left, Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, second right, Uruguay's President Yamandu Orsi, left, and Chile's former President Gabriel Boric, right, attend the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
