Cade Cunningham scored 33 points as the Detroit Pistons ended the Charlotte Hornets’ nine-game winning streak on Monday with a stormy 110-104 victory overshadowed by a mass brawl that saw four players ejected.<\/p>\n
A bruising clash between the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons and the red-hot Hornets erupted into mayhem midway through the third quarter when Charlotte’s Moussa Diabate fouled Detroit’s Jalen Duren.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Diabate and Duren went forehead-to-forehead, and Duren angrily shoved his opponent away with a hand to the face.<\/p>\n
That was the cue for a melee that saw scuffles and punches being thrown all over the court.<\/p>\n
After a delay of several minutes, the officiating crew ejected Duren and Detroit team-mate Isaiah Stewart along with Charlotte pair Diabate and Miles Bridges.<\/p>\n
Stewart had sprinted off the bench to join the fight, attempting to aim a blow at Bridges, who had thrown a punch at Duren as tempers flared.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
There was a further flashpoint in the fourth quarter when Hornets head coach Charles Lee was ejected after reacting furiously at a foul given against his team.<\/p>\n
Lee needed to be restrained by other members of the Charlotte coaching staff before being led off the court.<\/p>\n
Lee later praised his team’s performance after they went toe-to-toe with the Pistons for long periods of the contest.<\/p>\n
“That was a freaking great game for us,” Lee said. “They are the number one team in the East and they bring a level of physicality and competitiveness to them.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“I think that overall our guys responded to every run that they went on, and all the physicality.”<\/p>\n
Asked about the clash between Diabate and Duren that triggered the fight, Lee said: “Two guys got in a heated conversation and then it kind of spiraled from there.”<\/p>\n
Of his own ejection in the fourth quarter, Lee added: “I gotta have a little bit better emotional control in that moment.”<\/p>\n
Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff pinned the blame for the flashpoint squarely on Charlotte’s players, saying Duren had been defending himself.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“Our guys deal with a lot right?” Bickerstaff said. “But they’re not the ones that initiated it… they crossed the line.<\/p>\n
“I hate that it got as ugly as it got. That’s not something you ever want to see. But if a guy throws a punch at you, you have a responsibility to protect yourself and that’s what happened tonight.<\/p>\n
“Go back and watch the film. They’re the ones that initiated crossing the line and our guy had to defend himself.”<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Detroit’s victory lifted them to 39-13 at the top of the Eastern Conference standings, clear of the second-placed New York Knicks (34-19). Charlotte remain in 10th place on 25-29.<\/p>\n
In other games, the Orlando Magic downed the Milwaukee Bucks 118-99 while the Utah Jazz upset the Miami Heat 115-111.<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Nets (15-37) also scored an upset with a 123-115 defeat of the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n
rcw\/pst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cade Cunningham scored 33 points as the Detroit Pistons ended the Charlotte Hornets’ nine-game winning streak on Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,247,909,5087,684,473,3878,329,61263,296,188,685,1016,912,189,10510,121,6357,6,191,76,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-593841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn-nets","10":"tag-cade-cunningham","11":"tag-charles-lee","12":"tag-charlotte","13":"tag-charlotte-hornets","14":"tag-charlottehornets","15":"tag-chicago-bulls","16":"tag-david-jensen","17":"tag-detroit","18":"tag-detroit-pistons","19":"tag-hornets","20":"tag-isaiah-stewart","21":"tag-jalen-duren","22":"tag-miami-heat","23":"tag-miles-bridges","24":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","25":"tag-moussa-diabate","26":"tag-nba","27":"tag-new-york-knicks","28":"tag-orlando-magic","29":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116044262632245928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}