The Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic are getting set to face-off in Game 2 of the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs. Given Orlando\u2019s status as an eighth seed, their inconsistent regular season, and Detroit\u2019s dominant campaign, most people (myself included) thought this would be a cakewalk for the Pistons.<\/p>\n
However, the Magic shocked us all in a Game 1 victory that proved that they are finally clicking<\/a> and that they can exploit the Pistons\u2019 lack of true two-way players. Oddsmakers<\/a> still believe that the Pistons are in the driver\u2019s seat to win this series, as they are a nine-point favorite in Game 2 (right around the spread from Game 1), and have -220 odds (an implied probability of -68.8%) to win the series.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n To make this come to fruition, the Pistons either need Ausar Thompson<\/a> and Ron Holland to find ways to exist on offense, Daniss Jenkins<\/a> and Duncan Robinson<\/a> to stop getting hunted on defense, or Kevin Huerter<\/a> and Caris LeVert<\/a> to step into larger roles. But more than anything, they need their All-Star big man to live up to his reputation.<\/p>\n Jalen Duren Needs A Big Game 2<\/p>\n Unless you\u2019ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you are likely aware of Jalen Duren\u2019s unspectacular Game 1 performance.<\/p>\n The Pistons can\u2019t win this series without Duren. This season, they led the entire NBA in points in the paint per game (per NBA.com<\/a>). A big reason why is Duren\u2019s merciless pursuit of shots at the basket. Outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, no one attempted rim field goal attempts at a higher clip than Duren (he and Zion Williamson<\/a> were tied for second-place in this category, per Dunks & Threes).<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In Game 1, Duren only attempted four field goals. A big reason for this was Detroit\u2019s lack of spacing making it easy for Orlando to pack the paint on him. But the thing is, the Pistons\u2019 spacing concerns are nothing new (29th in 3-point rate during the regular season). I hate to sound like a fake tough guy here, but Duren needs to be the human adonis that he is and fight through the extra physicality and be the biggest man in the room.<\/p>\n On defense, Duren has always struggled with defending in space (particularly in the pick-and-roll) and lapses in threat detection around the rim. Those weaknesses were magnified in the first match (see the tweet above). Some of this is on head coach J.B. Bickerstaff to put him in better spots, but again, Duren needs to make the classic \u201cplay better\u201d adjustment in Game 2 if the Pistons are going to avoid the dreaded 0-2 hole.<\/p>\n How to watch Pistons vs. Magic Game 2 of the 2026 NBA Playoffs<\/p>\n Date: April 22, 2026<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Time: 7 p.m. ET<\/p>\n TV\/Streaming: ABC\/ESPN
Location: Detroit, Michigan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic are getting set to face-off in Game 2 of the first round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[1026,7,3882,6101,296,188,4958,123,912,4103,48,1739,6,47,76,3883,1015,814],"class_list":{"0":"post-715254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-ausar-thompson","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-caris-levert","11":"tag-daniss-jenkins","12":"tag-detroit","13":"tag-detroit-pistons","14":"tag-duncan-robinson","15":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","16":"tag-jalen-duren","17":"tag-kevin-huerter","18":"tag-magic","19":"tag-michigan","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-orlando","22":"tag-orlando-magic","23":"tag-orlandomagic","24":"tag-the-pistons","25":"tag-zion-williamson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116443501007290607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715254","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=715254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}