Detroit, MI
Pistons vs. Raptors final score: Jaden Ivey buzzer beater gets Detroit the win
One thing was for certain: the Detroit Pistons were not going to let an offense rebound dictate the outcome of this game. With the score tied at 100 and the clock sitting at 22 seconds, the Pistons gave Jaden Ivey the ball and asked him to win the game. Ivey obliged by hitting a an off-ballance baseline push shot over Ochai Agbaji to give the Pistons the 102-100 win over the Toronto Raptors.
Ivey was the clear star of the game for Detroit. Starting at point guard for the sidelined Cade Cunningham, Ivey scored 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting and dished eight assists. He played smart basketball under control and was the only reason Detroit was in the game to begin with.
After hitting shots early and taking a quick 14-point lead, the Pistons offense abandoned them, and their defensive and rebounding deficiencies were on clear display. Toronto was able to snake past defenders and get second-chance opportunities as the defense struggled to rotate, box out and snare long rebounds.
The game was mostly back-and-forth in the second half with the Pistons spending most of that time trailing anywhere from one to six points. Never too far away but not really able to get over the hump. In truth, among two struggling offenses — Detroit hit 44% from the floor and 32% from deep compared to 39% and 28% for Toronto — the Pistons probably out-executed the Raptors by a hair. But it doesn’t matter if you can’t hit your first shot when you get three to four attempts so many times down the floor.
Toronto saw 25 of its 100 points come as second-chance points. I can’t remember a time when a team saw a full quarter of their offensive output come via second-chance points, but I saw it tonight. The Raptors had a 23 to 6 offensive rebound advantage. It was repulsive to watch as a Pistons fan.
Detroit, simply, is a pretty small team, and that gets exacerbated when you’re facing a range long-limbed team like Toronto who entered tonight as the NBA’s best offensive rebounding team. Missing Cade Cunningham doesn’t make it any easier as it meant the Pistons were starting Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. on the wings. That’s great if those two veterans are scorching from distance. Tonight, the duo combined to shoot 5-of-19 from deep, mostly courtesy of a horrid 3-of-14 night from Beasley.
The good news for Detroit is, well, the Raptors are not a very good team. Scottie Barnes was the best player on either team with 31 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists. The other Raps subsided on putbacks and some timely threes. The second piece of good news for the Pistons is that when they want to, they can defend.
It was a relief to see JB Bickerstaff mostly lean into a defensive lineup in crunch time with both Isaiah Stewart and Ausar Thompson on the floor. It was Ausar’s first NBA action since last March after battling a blood clot issue. Ausar played 16 minutes in total. His first NBA bucket of the season? A corner three, of course. Hey, the shot looked pretty clean.
His second of two baskets was more consequential. Stewart contested a Barnes driving layup and pushed the ball up the floor to Ausar who was able to make a running layup in transition on the other end. The score gave Detroit its first lead since 67-65 with just under 5 minutes remaining in the third quarter.
RJ Barrett was able to answer with a 3 on the other end, but Stewart had a another solid contest of a Davion Mitchell layup attempt. The Pistons again pushed the ball and found a driving Ivey, who was able to knife into the lane and tie the score at 98.
The Pistons were again able to deny the Raptors attempting to score at the rim on the next possession down the floor and in a scrum, the Detroit was able to find Malik Beasley who pushed the ball and found Beef Stew who had snuck beyond the defense for a running layup to put Detroit up 100-98.
Scottie Barnes took the ball right to Tobias Harris on the ensuing possession and use his strength and length to muscle up a clean look at the rim to tied the score at 100. That left 22 seconds for Ivey to work his magic.
It was a fitting end for Ivey, who deserves good things to happen after the great start to this season he’s had and the season he survived last year. Detroit has plenty of issues to clean up. Beating a four-win Toronto team who has yet to win on the road at all this season is no panacea. But a win is a win and Detroit needed one after losing three straight.
Detroit’s eighth win of the season means the team could lose its next 31 games and still be ahead of last season’s pace.
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DETROIT – What started as a seemingly routine home repair quickly unraveled into something far more troubling for one Detroit family.
A man appeared to be posing as a contractor — arriving in construction gear and accompanied by two teens — showed up April 7 at a west side Detroit home, offering to do brick work for about $300. But according to the homeowner’s daughter, the situation started to seem fishy — and expensive — fast.
Tameka Kelly said the trio told her 76-year-old mother they were with “State Line Construction” and began working almost immediately.
“I just felt used and taken advantage of,” Kelly said, looking back at the situation.
“They kept working — kept putting cement down, I said, ‘you might want to tell them to stop.’ He said, ‘well right now it’s $1129.’ I said, ‘my mother‘s not paying you $1000,’” Kelly said.
At one point, the man even offered to repair the bottom of the home’s wheelchair ramp — something Kelly said her sister, who lives with her mother, relies on daily. But she refused because something just didn’t sit right.
“I gave him the $300,” Kelly said, hoping they would just leave. “I thought, well, he knows where my mom lives. I don’t want him coming back trying to do something to my mom‘s house or something to our vehicles.”
Kelly later tried to confront the man, who identified himself as Brian Lopez, and called the number on the invoice.
“When I called he was like, ‘no no no brickwork no brickwork’ I said, ‘yes you did. You were just here. I said I don’t forget a voice,’” she said.
But the biggest red flag came when she looked closer at the address listed on the invoice.
The address — 70 West Maple in Troy — turned out to be a McDonald’s.
“I really got upset when I found out that address was to a McDonald’s,” Kelly said.
Initially, Kelly said when she tried to file a report with Detroit police, she said they told her the situation was a civil matter and she could not file one. She then filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
Now, Detroit police tell Local 4 they will be taking Kelly’s fraud report, and once that is completed, an investigation will follow.
State Line initially told Local 4 they were not familiar with a Brian Lopez, then an attorney for State Line construction told Local 4 that, after checking the company’s records, there is no Brian Lopez that works for the company. As a matter of fact, the attorney said, State Line Construction does not do cement or residential construction. He said they focus on electrical work.
Attempts by Local 4 to reach the man going by the name Brian Lopez with the number given were unsuccessful.
Kelly said she felt compelled to speak up to prevent others from falling victim.
“I’m really upset about it, and I don’t want it to happen to anybody else,” she said.
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Pistons vs Magic Game 1 reaction, lessons learned and what must change
Omari Sankofa II, Shawn Windsor and special guest Bryce Simon react to Detroit Pistons’ Game 1 NBA playoff loss to Orlando Magic, April 19, 2026, at Little Caesars Arena.
How in the world did things get so bad so fast for the Detroit Pistons?
In just one outing in the 2026 NBA playoffs, they went from top-seeded darlings of the Eastern Conference to punching bags punked by an 8-seed short on rest but long on resilience and toughness.
“I would say they ‘outphysical-ed’ us today,” Pistons wing Ausar Thompson said after the Orlando Magic stole Game 1 of the first-round NBA playoff series, 112-101, at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday, April 19. “One, because they got more rebounds than us. They forced more turnovers.”
Yes, this was always going to be a physical series. Though you would think the Pistons, owners of the NBA’s second-best defense and playing at home, would have a sizable advantage.
It also should have helped them that they were coming off six days’ rest, as opposed to the Magic coming off winning a play-in game just 47 hours earlier.
It didn’t help that Pistons star Cade Cunnigham was playing in just his fourth game since suffering a collapsed lung and missing 11 games. He scored a game-high 39 points, but he didn’t operate as smoothly as usual, with just four assists (far off his 9.9-assist season average) while committing three turnovers.
Another indictment of the Pistons’ worrisome play: Tobias Harris (19 points) was Cunningham’s only teammate who scored in double digits. Meanwhile, all five Magic staters did so, led by Paolo Banchero’s 23 points on 8-for-15 shooting.
And just like that, the Magic came out firing, scoring 35 points in the first quarter and never trailing.
“Yeah, just that we came out a little too tight, lax, whatever the word is, maybe both for some of us, but just didn’t come out with the right energy,” Cunningham said. “Gave them life further on. And then, you know, we had to deal with that for the rest of the game. We were better in stints, but can’t dig a hole like that.”
He’s right. The Pistons can’t dig a hole like that in Game 2 on Wednesday night. Because if they do, and they lose, the Magic would not only have homecourt advantage – they got that with Sunday’s victory – but could close out the series without another win in Detroit, with three of the next four games coming in Orlando.
That’s precisely what makes Game 2 a must-win game for the Pistons. It’s bad enough they lost the opener at LCA, where they were 31-9. But now they’ve let the Magic set a hard-edged tone in the kind of the game that could lead them to steal the series.
“I know that they feel great about this game,” Cunningham said. “This was a big win for them. They came in, they handled their business and stole one on the road. That’s what you want to do in the playoff series.
“So I’m sure that they feel great about that. Obviously, we’re sick about losing this one. It’s a long series, though. There’s no confidence dropped from us. We know that team. They know us. So it’ll be a long, fun series.”
Cunningham might be right, because the Pistons are arguably the better team. They have enough talent and more depth.
What the Pistons don’t have is the advantage of desperation. They had an excellent season from start to finish, closed with a 60-22 record, and wrapped up the East’s top seed on April 4.
The Magic, meanwhile, have been playing with fire (and not always the good kind) down the stretch, while their fifth-year coach, Jamahl Mosley, entered the postseason on the hottest of hot seats after his squad went 0-7 in road playoff games over the past two seasons.
To make things even worse, the Magic lost the regular-season finale to the Boston Celtics – well, their reserves, at least – to blow their chance at the 7-seed and homecourt in the play-in tournament. Then Orlando lost to the Philadelphia 76ers (on the road, of course) in the first play-in game before beating the Charlotte Hornets (in Orlando) to advance to a best-of-seven series – featuring four road games – vs. the Pistons.
Now, it looks like the Magic have found their form, as they routed the Hornets, 121-90, and stunned the Pistons. And just like that, Mosley went from hot seat to just plain hot.
Banchero wouldn’t go so far as to say the victory set up his team to steal the series, but he didn’t deny it was exactly the kind of start Orlando needed.
“It’s just a good win for us as a team getting it on the road against a great team and 1-seed,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we got to come back Wednesday, you know, reciprocate it, you know?
“They’re not going to lay down. They’re going to turn it up. So we’ve got to be ready for that. And it’s just one-game-at-a-time mentality, you know? That’s what it’s got to be. It’s the first of four.”
Yes, it’s just the first of four wins the Magic needs to advance. If the Pistons don’t find an answer quickly, the math – and hardly anyone else – won’t be on their side when they head to Central Florida this weekend.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
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