{"id":703395,"date":"2026-04-07T14:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703395\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:07:12","slug":"pistons-hoping-to-put-michigan-history-on-repeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703395\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons hoping to put Michigan history on repeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Michigan Wolverines just won the 2026\u00a0men’s\u00a0basketball\u00a0championship,\u00a0and the Detroit Pistons are hoping\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a sign of things to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michigan\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0won the NCAA title since 1989, and the last time they did, the Pistons also won a championship, sweeping the hated Lakers for their\u00a0first of\u00a0back-to-back titles, a feat\u00a0they\u2019d\u00a0love to repeat this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pistons road\u00a0to a championship\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pistons are already a popular pick for a first-round upset<\/a>, as no one\u00a0outside of\u00a0Michigan thinks this team is for\u00a0real,\u00a0especially since they are still waiting for Cade Cunningham to return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luckily, it looks as though Cade will be back for the playoffs,<\/a> but there will still be those who\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0believe in the Pistons until they string together few wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Eastern Conference is\u00a0fairly balanced\u00a0outside the top four<\/a>, so the first-round series\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0be a cupcake for Detroit, as\u00a0Philly could be healthy, Charlotte has been red\u00a0hot,\u00a0and the Pistons\u00a0always seem to have\u00a0drama against Miami. Detroit has had battles against Orlando as well, so whoever Detroit gets in the first round will be a tough out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Detroit can escape it, they are likely to\u00a0play\u00a0the Cavaliers, unless of course Cleveland can catch the Knicks for the 3rd\u00a0seed. They may not want to, as the Raptors are at risk of slipping out of the 6th\u00a0spot, so whoever claims it will be a dangerous team that is\u00a0on a roll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Either way, Detroit is set up for a second-round matchup that will define their season, as they can shut up all the doubters and haters by winning against\u00a0either\u00a0Cleveland or New York, but will\u00a0likely be\u00a0underdogs in the series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Making it to the Eastern Conference Finals would make this season a roaring success, so\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0already the stuff of a dream season, but could the Pistons actually win the title?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The playoffs will be matchup dependent\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d\u00a0be happy if the Pistons made it out of the first round if\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0being honest and anything beyond that would be gravy, so the thoughts of repeating Michigan history and winning a title in the same year as the Wolverines again seems like a fever dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are already in unlikely territory when it comes to the Pistons\u00a0emerging\u00a0from the East, but if we are dreaming, why not dream big?\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are teams in the\u00a0West\u00a0the Pistons could potentially beat to win their fourth title in franchise\u00a0history,\u00a0and there are others where I\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0like their chances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Strangely, the Pistons seem to match up better with OKC than San Antonio, but either team would\u00a0likely be\u00a0heavy favorites against Detroit.<\/p>\n

Outside of those two, you could talk me into the Pistons beating anyone else, so all Detroit can do is take care of their own business and hope for carnage in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pistons could also get bounced in the first round, so nothing is a given in a playoffs that could be defined by their parity, but the Pistons believe, and could\u00a0add to what has already been a memorable year for basketball in Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Michigan Wolverines just won the 2026\u00a0men’s\u00a0basketball\u00a0championship,\u00a0and the Detroit Pistons are hoping\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a sign of things to come.\u00a0 Michigan\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,6,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-703395","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703395","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=703395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}