{"id":680793,"date":"2026-03-26T21:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T21:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680793\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T21:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T21:03:40","slug":"ausar-thompsons-timing-was-perfect-for-the-pistons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680793\/","title":{"rendered":"Ausar Thompson’s timing was perfect for the Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ausar Thompson has been vital to the Detroit Pistons’ success this season and when the versatile forward missed a stretch of games, it became evident just how important of a role he played in J.B. Bickerstaff’s system.<\/p>\n

Detroit’s recent rough patch came as a result to several reasons, but arguably the biggest reason of them all was the absence of the team’s defensive ace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fortunately his return to action came at the perfect time, especially with the recent developments for the Pistons.<\/p>\n

Ausar Thompson’s return spared Detroit<\/p>\n

Thompson returned to action against the Toronto Raptors, just one game prior to Cade Cunningham’s eventual setback that would sideline him indefinitely after be diagnosed with a collapsed lung.<\/p>\n

Obviously, there’s no perfect answer to fill the void that Cunningham leaves behind, especially considering just how important the MVP candidate is for the Pistons on the offensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n

Despite that, if Detroit would have found themselves in a position where both Thompson and Cunningham were out of the lineup, it’s safe to assume Bickerstaff’s job would have gotten much harder.<\/p>\n

As of late, the Pistons have done an exceptional job weathering the storm without their star guard, even with their recent overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks snapping their recent winning streak.<\/p>\n

A large reason for that success has been the two-way play from Thompson, who continues to flash his versatility as both a defensive anchor and savvy offensive weapon.<\/p>\n

Thompson’s time of return may have spared the Pistons from a late-season collapse that put them in bad spot heading into the postseason.<\/p>\n

Pistons seem secure atop the East<\/p>\n

After the team’s recent stretch of wins, Detroit has put themselves in position to clinch the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

Following the injury of Cunningham, nightmare scenarios flashed about the potential opportunity the team could fall into a spell of bad habits and underwhelming play that would open a window for one of the Boston Celtics of New York Knicks to close the gap between the No. 2 seed and the top seed.<\/p>\n

The return of Thompson though, and the emergence of Daniss Jenkins<\/a> in a starting role has allowed for the team to close whatever window opposing teams thought they had.<\/p>\n

If Cunningham finds himself in position to return for a postseason run with the Pistons, the East will run through the Motor City with home court advantage almost locked in for Detroit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ausar Thompson has been vital to the Detroit Pistons’ success this season and when the versatile forward missed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,6,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-680793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116297506806573936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680793","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=680793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}