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DETROIT — Maybe it was just morbid curiosity, but there was a shocking amount of interest in a December game between two sub-.500 teams, especially once Utah added Lauri Markkanen and Talen Horton-Tucker to the injury report of an already shorthanded team.
That news brought renewed hope to the Detroit Pistons fan base.
Everything appeared to be falling into place for the Pistons to finally snap a 24-game losing streak. The Jazz were severely shorthanded and on the second night of a back-to-back. Even the Las Vegas oddsmakers made the Pistons a 2.5-point favorite.
Surely, the long-awaited win was coming … or not.
There’s always the next game.
The Jazz kept the misery going for Detroit, handing the Pistons their 25th straight loss with a 119-111 win at Little Caesars Arena.
“I want to be careful with my words, because this one hurts more than most of them,” Detroit coach Monty Williams said.
Detroit guard Cade Cunningham echoed his coach. After lamenting Detroit’s 20 turnovers and his porous defense, Cunningham summed up his feelings, saying: “I’m sick right now.”
As the saying goes, it’s the hope that kills you.
Kelly Olynyk put a bow on a spectacular performance against his former team with a deep 3-pointer with 2:23 left to give the Jazz a late 7-point lead. That shot served as the death blow and even induced “sell the team” chants from the Pistons fans, many of whom placed bags over their heads.
Olynyk had a season-high 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting to lead the Jazz (11-18).
“That’s as many times as I think I’ve ever seen Kelly shoot,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said.
Olynyk is a known playmaker — he had six assists Thursday — and Detroit played him like one. When Olynyk had the ball, Detroit often fanned to his teammates to prevent easy passes. That gave Olynyk some one-on-one opportunities, and he took advantage.
“It’s hard sometimes to remember that Kelly, I guess, is a big,” Hardy said. “He’s kind of a hybrid player at times. It’s unclear what position he is in, but I thought his size and his footwork tonight were fantastic on the offensive end. And, obviously, mixing in some threes at the right times kept their defense honest and allowed him to use all of his ball fakes and foot fakes.”
Hardy said he didn’t address the Pistons’ lengthy streak with the team beforehand because he didn’t see the point. The players had been asked about it by reporters, and social media was filled with talk of it potentially coming to an end.
“I think a lot of people felt like they had a really good chance of winning tonight,” said Kris Dunn, who had 13 points and 11 assists. “We treated it like every game — each game we try to go out there and win. We knew today was gonna be a dogfight. Collectively as a group, I thought we did a good job of making sure that we pulled this one out.”
It was a victory that Hardy called a “really, really good team win.” The Jazz had six players reach double figures and had a season-high 15 steals. Hardy even singled out Luka Samanic’s 10 second-half minutes as key to the win.
“We absorbed some tough moments, some turnovers, some missed shots, some missed defensive assignments,” Hardy said. “Not everybody on our team played their best individual game, but I thought the way that the team approached it, as a group, was really, really good.”
And good enough against what is fast becoming a historically bad Detroit team.
Because like so many other times during the long losing streak — which is now just one short of tying the single-season NBA record — Thursday was more about the Pistons than the Jazz.
Exhibit A: A five-plus-minute stretch in the fourth quarter where Utah led by 5 with 8:26 left in the game and then went more than five minutes without a basket. The Jazz never lost the lead.
Bad teams find ways to lose games; the Pistons found a way against a tired and undermanned Jazz team.
“We’re not 2-26 bad,” Cunningham said. “No way we are that bad.”
After Thursday, he won’t find many that agree.
