Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\nDetroit (56-21) needs one win — or one loss by the second-place Boston Celtics (52-25) — to clinch home-court advantage throughout the East postseason. Both the Pistons and Celtics have five regular-season games remaining.<\/p>\n
The Pistons have played well without star guard Cade Cunningham, who will continue to recover from a collapsed lung this weekend. He has missed the last nine games, during which the team has gone 7-2, with both losses coming in overtime.<\/p>\n
Most recently, Detroit topped the Minnesota Timberwolves 113-108 on Thursday as Daniss Jenkins scored 26 points and Jalen Duren notched 22 points and 14 rebounds for the Pistons.<\/p>\n
In addition to playing without Cunningham, the team got only six minutes out of Tobias Harris (knee injury), who is questionable to face his former team on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“I give our guys credit. They just seem to figure out a way, and typically it starts with our defense,” Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff said.<\/p>\n
The Pistons held the Timberwolves to 31% 3-point shooting and forced 14 turnovers, led by Ausar Thompson, the Eastern Conference Defensive Player of the Month in both January and March.<\/p>\n
Thompson finished with seven points, nine rebounds, nine assists, three blocks and two steals against Minnesota.<\/p>\n
“Throughout his career, that’s what he wants to do,” Bickerstaff said of Thompson racking up the monthly honors, “and that’s where he wants to put his impact on the game.”<\/p>\n
Duncan Robinson chipped in with 15 points for the Pistons. He enters Saturday’s game with seven straight double-digit scoring performances, having made multiple 3-pointers in each of those contests.<\/p>\n
“We find different ways to win,” noted reserve guard Kevin Huerter. “There are different guys (who step up). We piece it together. That’s the sign of a good team.”<\/p>\n
Philadelphia (43-34) has won eight of its last 11 games, including a 115-103 victory over Minnesota on Friday. The Sixers are tied with the Toronto Raptors for the No. 6 seed in the East.<\/p>\n
Paul George scored 23 points against the Timberwolves while adding six rebounds, six assists and four steals. He is averaging 27.0 points in five games since coming back from a 25-game suspension for taking a banned substance.<\/p>\n
“His shot making has been so good that teams are … almost forcing him inside the (3-point) line, and he’s been able to take it (to the rim), which is good,” Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse said.<\/p>\n
Kelly Oubre Jr. chipped in with 21 points, including two clutch 3-pointers down the stretch. Joel Embiid contributed 19 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks.<\/p>\n
The Sixers scored 42 points in the third quarter after managing just 41 in the first half.<\/p>\n
“I think we just started playing a little smarter offensively,” Nurse said of the second-half surge. “I think we did an excellent job of doing almost everything we wanted to in the second half, offensively, and the defense stayed just about the same.”<\/p>\n
The Pistons have won all three matchups against the Sixers this season.<\/p>\n
–Field Level Media<\/p>\n
\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pistons aim to secure East’s top seed in clash vs. Sixers The Detroit Pistons are one win away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,188,6,678,207,3817],"class_list":{"0":"post-697990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116347274853381926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697990","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=697990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}