Pistons Come Up Short In Utah

Rookie Cade Cunningham did his part. Reserve Rodney McGruder did too. In fact, most of the Pistons actually played pretty well in Utah, but overall it wasn't enough. The Donovan Mitchell-less Jazz defeated the Pistons 111-101 in Salt Lake City on Friday night despite a solid all around effort from Detroit.

Cunningham finished the night with 25 points after scoring 11 in the first quarter and looked like the best-scoring rookie in the league against a solid defensive team in the Jazz. He went a pretty efficient 11-of-23 from the floor and also dished out five assists and grabbed six board. Filling up the stat sheet is becoming the expectation for the No. 1 overall pick. On the defensive end, however, Cunningham acknowledged that he and his teammates still have a long way to go.

"Coach said it after the game — we're reaching too much, fouling too much. We can complain about officiating and stuff, but at the end of the day, we're fouling.

"We had a couple of lapses where we lost guys and gave up some open looks too. Down the stretch, we can't give up those open looks."

The youngster is right. Detroit was within striking distance all game long but some lapses and fouls allowed the Jazz to pull away late. The Jazz ended up 34 free throws to Detroit's 16. That kind of discrepancy can't happen especially on the road against a good team. 

"We put them on the free-throw line 34 times," head coach Dwane Casey said after the loss. "We were reaching all night. [On offense] I thought our compete level was good. I thought we got shots we wanted."

The Pistons fought, but it's like we see too often — they're just not good enough to beat quality teams. Hell, Mitchell was in street clothes and Utah still won with relative ease. It wasn't a blowout by any stretch, but it never felt like Detroit was actually going to take the lead and win the game.

At the end of the night, Cunningham had the best game for the Pistons, while Saddiq Bey finished with 13 points, and reserves Trey Lyles and Rodney McGruder chipped in 16 and 15 points respectively. Detroit is in Denver on Sunday to close out the four-game, west coast road trip