The 2021 No. 1 pick is facing off against the 2022 No. 1 overall pick as the Detroit Pistons and Cade Cunningham go against the Paolo Banchero-led Orlando Magic. Belief in Paolo seems to ebb and flow depending on his efficiency, something Cunningham fans know well until last season. In his most recent contest, he flirted with a triple-double, notching 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds in a 113-108 loss to the Houston Rockets. What Paolo doesn\u2019t have that Cade can rely on even when his shot isn\u2019t falling is quality defense and the ability to orchestrate his team\u2019s entire offense.<\/p>\n
Banchero relies much more on his scoring to be effective on a nightly basis. One night, you get a great game like against the Rockets, or the 36-point outing in a one-point win against the Lakers the prior game. But in his past 10, he\u2019s shooting just 41% from the floor and 34% from deep. And there is another play from his draft class at his heels looking to establish himself as one of the best of 2022 \u2014 Jalen Duren.<\/p>\n
Duren is on a tear recently, dominating on offense, owning the glass, and more than holding his own on defense. In Duren\u2019s past 10 games, he\u2019s averaging 31.6 points per game on 65% shooting He, Banchero, and the two OKC boys \u2014 Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren have formed a solid little top four in their draft class.<\/p>\n
And while first thoughts when considering Orlando will always turn to Banchero, Detroit really needs to watch out for Desmond Bane. He\u2019s hot from deep lately, and the Pistons have been giving up threes in a big way lately. If they let Bane go for 30-plus, it is going to be a long night.<\/p>\n
When: 6 p.m. ET
Where: Kia Center, Orlando, Florida
Watch: Fan Duel Sports Network Detroit
Odds: Pistons -5<\/p>\n
Cade Cunningham, Duncan Robinson, Ausar Thompson, Tobias Harris, Jalen Duren<\/p>\n
Jalen Suggs, Desmond Bane, Tristan Da Silva, Paolo Banchero, Wendell Carter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2021 No. 1 pick is facing off against the 2022 No. 1 overall pick as the Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,63977,52275,48,6,47,76,3883],"class_list":{"0":"post-633225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit-pistons-discussion","10":"tag-detroit-pistons-game-day","11":"tag-magic","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-magic","15":"tag-orlandomagic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116156427353750363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633225","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=633225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}