Pistons tie 76ers for longest overall losing streak at 28 games

BOSTON — When the Detroit Pistons entered the visiting locker room at halftime of Thursday night’s game against the Boston Celtics, it looked like they had a chance to not only shock the world, but avoid landing in a dubious place in the history books in the process.

Detroit, which entered the game as a 16.5-point underdog after losing 27 consecutive games, found itself leading Boston — the NBA’s best team, with a perfect 14-0 record at TD Garden this season — by 19 points.

But then the second half began. And as quickly as Detroit had taken control of the game, Boston surged right back into it. By the end of the third quarter, the Cletics had erased that 19-point halftime deficit. And, despite the Pistons fighting back valiantly to force overtime, ultimately it was Boston that would claim a 128-122 victory after the five-minute extra session.

With the loss, the Pistons tied the 76ers for the longest overall losing streak, which Philadelphia set across the end of the 2014-15 and beginning of 2015-16 seasons with 28 consecutive losses. The Pistons can set a new record for futility Saturday, when they face the Toronto Raptors back home in Detroit.

For much of Thursday night’s contest it looked like the Pistons would avoid that fate. Boston, back home after winning the final three games of a four-game West Coast swing, appeared to do exactly what Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla warned of before the game: taking their struggling opponents lightly.

“I think just the expectation of it’s supposed to go a certain way, or it’s supposed to be easy,” Mazzulla said when asked what the challenge was in facing a team in Detroit’s position. “It’s just not the case. So, just playing the game. It’s another game, regardless of the other team’s record, and I think sometimes you get caught up in, because it’s this team, we should be up by this amount at first quarter, halftime, and it’s just not how it works.”

It certainly wasn’t how it worked Thursday, as Mazzulla’s players then went out … and promptly looked like a team expecting to sleepwalk their way to a victory.

Instead, Boston found itself in a dogfight with Detroit that extended into an extra five minutes after Bojan Bogdanovic tied the game up with a putback with 4.6 seconds remaining. Eventually, though, Boston was able to pull away in the extra session, as Kristaps Porzingis (35 points) and Jayson Tatum (31) proved to be too much for Detroit to handle.

In so many ways, Detroit did enough to win. The league’s worst 3-point shooting team made more triples (13) than Boston (11), who entered the game as the league’s most prolific team from deep. The Pistons had 31 second-chance points, and repeatedly fought for extra shots. Detroit got strong performances from Cade Cunningham (31 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists) and Jaden Ivey (22 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists before fouling out in overtime).

But it wound up being not quite enough to either break Boston’s undefeated start to the season at home — or to stop Detroit’s seemingly never-ending losing streak.

After the Pistons led by as many as 21 points in the first half, Boston outscored Detroit 35-16 in the third quarter to storm back, tying the game up as it went to the fourth quarter.

Yet even after almost immediately coughing up that lead, Detroit showed an impressive level of fight. The Pistons responded to the Celtics taking the lead to begin the fourth quarter by pushing themselves back out in front by as many as four points on multiple occasions — the latest being when Ivey split a pair of free throws with 4:23 remaining.

Boston, however, immediately responded with back-to-back buckets by Porzingis to retake the lead, before a Tatum layup and a Porzingis 3-pointer pushed Boston’s lead to 106-100.

Ivey, however, scored six straight points — first on an and-1, and then a corner 3-pointer — to tie the game back up with 1:02 remaining. Bogdanovic then missed a wide-open 3 with 36 seconds left that would’ve given Detroit the lead, and Tatum was credited a layup with 8.7 seconds to go when Cunningham goaltended it.

Still, that left the Pistons with one more chance to tie — or win — the game. But when Cunningham’s 3-pointer missed short, Bogdanovic was there to make a putback and tie the game with 4.6 seconds left. After Tatum missed a potential game winner at the other end, the game went to overtime.

And, from there, Boston did just enough to survive — and send Detroit home with yet another loss.