Pistons erase 22-point halftime deficit

The Pistons looked cooked at halftime. Orlando led 60-38 on Friday night, the building was loud, and Detroit’s offense had basically stopped working. Then the whole game flipped. Detroit beat the Magic 93-79 in Game 6, erased a 22-point halftime deficit, and pushed this first-round series to a Game 7 on Sunday, May 3, in Detroit. (espn.com) ### How bad was it at halftime? Pretty bad. Orlando won the second quarter 35-12 and carried a 60-38 lead into the break. Early in the third, the Magic even stretched the margin to 24, which is why this didn’t feel like a normal comeback at all — it felt like a series-closing loss for Detroit. (espn.com([espn.com)what changed? Detroit finally got organized on both ends, but the real story is Orlando’s offense completely fell apart. The Pistons outscored the Magic 55-19 in the second half. Orlando scored only 11 points in the third quarter and eight in the fourth. That 19-point half is being treated as the(espn.com)you this wasn’t just a cold stretch — it was a collapse. (nba.com) ### Who carried Detroit? Cade Cunningham did what stars are supposed to do when everything is wobbling. He finished with 32 points, plus 10 rebounds and six assists, and he kept scoring while Orlando stopped generating anything clean. One of the wildest details from the night is that Cunningham outscored the entire Magic team by himself in the second half. (espn.com) ### How ugly did Orlando’s drought get? Ugly enough that the game started to feel cursed. Orlando missed 23 straight field-goal attempts at one point in the second half. Paolo Banchero and Desmond Bane led the Magic with 17 points each, but the team shot itself into a wall and never found a release valve(espn.com)game, every possession starts carrying double weight. (news-journalonline.com) ### Why does this matter beyond one game? Because the stakes changed completely. Orlando had a 3-2 series lead coming in and was one half away from knocking out the East’s No. 1 seed. Instead, Detroit survived an(news-journalonline.com)er trailing 3-1, while the Magic are one loss from turning a huge upset chance into a blown series. (nba.com) ### Was this a Pistons breakthrough or a Magic meltdown? Honestly, both. Detroit deserves credit for tightening up, defending harder, and letting Cunningham dictate the game. But Orlando’s side of this is impossible to ignore. CBS called it a meltdown, and that fits — not because th(nba.com)roduced one of the worst offensive halves imaginable. (cbssports.com) ### What should you watch in Game 7? Start with the obvious question — can Orlando score in the half court when the game gets tight? Detroit now knows it can drag this series into a grind and trust Cunningham late. Orlando has to prove Game 6 was a one-night (cbssports.com), in Detroit. (sixerswire.usatoday.com) ### Bottom line Detroit didn’t just stay alive. It turned a dead series into a coin flip. And Orlando now has to walk into Game 7 carrying the kind of collapse that can stick to a team fast.