The Detroit Pistons closed a two-game homestead with another blowout.

They defeated a banged-up Memphis Grizzlies team at Little Caesars Arena, 126-110, on Friday, March 13, behind a strong effort by Jalen Duren. The All-Star big overpowered Memphis’ frontcourt and finished with 30 points and 13 rebounds on 12-for-15 overall shooting.

Cade Cunningham had near-triple double with 17 points, 15 assists, eight rebounds and three steals, and Marcus Sasser added 16 points in a 313 Day victory. It was Cunningham’s third game in a row with at least 13 assists. The Pistons led by as many as 22 points and pulled away in the third quarter, extending their lead to 17 with a 16-5 run midway through the period.

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With the win, the Pistons (48-18) extended their lead to five games over the Boston Celtics in the East, with the Celtics idle Friday. The also rounded off thelr Central Division lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers to an even eight games with 16 to play this season.

Next up for the Pistons

The Pistons can also take a step toward clinching a playoff spot, as they head to Toronto to face the East’s 7-seed, the Toronto Raptors, on Sunday (3:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Detroit). The Pistons enter Saturday with an 11½-game lead on the Raps; a win would put them 12½ up with 15 to play.

In the back of a church in an anonymous stretch of 7 Mile in Detroit dotted with industrial lots and fast food stores, performers dressed as giant robots battle it out in front of a live audience behind bullet-proof glass.

“We have these nine foot tall metal gladiators that shoot exploding projectiles at 20 rounds a second,” says Art Cartwright, the impresario who founded both the church, Global Empowerment Ministries, and the organization behind the robot show, The Interactive Combat League.

The show, running every few months, is called Robowar. Cartwright’s two enterprises have little to do with each other, he says, save for sharing space and introducing members of his community to potential employment in robotics.

“Metropolitian Detroit right now leads the nation in robotics,” Cartwright says. “We have more robots than any other place in America.”

But the gleaming, glowing-eyed stars of the Interactive Combat League are nothing like industrial robots that help assemble automobiles. They are played by humans wearing what might be considered mech suits. Robots fighting each other as entertainment is a cultural fantasy that goes back at least to 1956, when Richard Matheson’s short story “Steel” was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was adapted into a 1963 episode on the TV show The Twilight Zone, and helped inspire the 2011 movie, Real Steel.

“I’m a Marvel fan,” Cartwright says. “So I’m like, okay, let’s make some robots that look like superheroes.”

Robowar has been selling out shows in its 572 seat auditorium since it launched last summer, and has attracted admiring national coverage. Tickets start at around $50. Cartwright says he eventually plans to stage online interactive robot fights where remote viewers control the action by buying virtual tokens. He says he’s created AI personas for robots representing 30 different cities, from Boston to Los Angeles.

“They talk cash money trash,” he chuckles.

A Detroit-themed quadruped is part of the action at the Robowar show.

Timothy Chen Allen

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Timothy Chen Allen

Robowar also features real robots — robot dogs and child-sized humanoids that dance and pose for pictures. Cartwright bought the smaller robots from a Chinese company, Unitree, known for making accessible robots, with some models available at places like Walmart and costing fewer than $20,000. At one point during the show, there’s a robot competing in a dance-off against a human audience member, executing impressive spins and flips. But the audience, including a 10 year old Kaden Denard, mostly seems to root against the machine.

“They are clankers!” Denard exclaims, using an emerging slur against robots and AI. “I want to be mean to the robots! They are clankers!”

“You better be nice to them before they finish you,” his mother, Nawal Denard, jokes. Though the two depart into a cold Michigan night, along with hundreds of other spectators, the room they left was full of human warmth.

Edited for radio and web by Meghan Sullivan

TAMPA BAY – The Tampa Bay Lightning have acquired defenseman Ian Mitchell from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for forwards Michael Milne and Wojciech Stachowiak, Vice President and General Manager Julien BriseBois announced today. Mitchell will report to the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League. 

Mitchell, 27, has skated in 45 games with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins this season, recording four goals and 20 points with a plus-27 rating. The 6-foot, 195-pound defenseman has appeared in 201 career AHL contests between the Griffins, Providence Bruins and Rockford IceHogs, registering 27 goals and 113 points with a plus-51 rating and 10 game-winning goals.

A native of St. Albert, Alberta, Mitchell has played in 110 career NHL games between the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, logging four goals and 19 points while averaging 15:10 of time on ice. He was originally drafted by Chicago in the second round, 57thoverall, of the 2017 NHL Draft.