The Pistons ended a 16-game losing streak to the Knicks with a 120-111 win at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Cade Cunningham, who signed a max rookie scale extension in the offseason, carried them to victory with a triple-double, the first time a Detroit player has done that at MSG.
Cunningham feels he’s moving into the conversation for All-Star consideration.
“I believe I am,” Cunningham said, per Hunter Patterson of The Athletic. “Whenever I’m on the court every night, I feel like I’m the best player. I try to do whatever it takes to help my team win, and my teammates have made me look great this year. I’m just trying to help my team win and we’ll see what happens with it.”
In his last 10 games, Cunningham is posting 24.5 points, 10.0 assists and 7.1 rebounds, Patterson notes.
We have more from the Central Division:
- A 90-minute shootaround session paid dividends for the Pacers on Friday. They snapped a four-game losing streak with a 132-123 win in Chicago. “We spent a lot of time (Friday) morning and really had the longest shootaround that I’ve had since I’ve been here,” coach Rick Carlisle told Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. “We just had a lot of things that we had to clean up. One of them was our offensive spacing and movement.”
- The Cavaliers made 40.5% of their 3s heading into Sunday’s action, leading the league in that category. They are tops in the league from long range and have a 17-0 record when making 35% or more of their 3-point tries. “It’s starting to be real, this deep into the season,” Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson told Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “You can qualify us as a super excellent shooting team.”
- Jerome Allen returned to the Pistons staff this season under J.B. Bickerstaff after previously serving under Dwane Casey. In between, Allen worked in a variety of roles at Detroit Mumford High School and Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press details Allen’s lasting impact at the school.
- Cavs forward Evan Mobley rolled his left ankle on Sunday and was ruled out for the second half, Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press tweets.