Detroit, MI

Second-half surge lifts Detroit Pistons to 6th straight win

Published

4 months ago

November 10, 2025

Second-half surge lifts Detroit Pistons to 6th straight win

PHILADELPHIA — At halftime of Sunday night’s game at Xfinity Mobile Arena, it looked like the Detroit Pistons would see their five-game winning streak come to a screeching halt.

The hometown Philadelphia 76ers were moving the basketball, hitting shots and playing with a verve that the Pistons — despite being the rested team, having not played the night before, as Philadelphia did — didn’t seem capable of matching.

But then the second half started. And behind a spectacular performance from Cade Cunningham — who scored 24 of his 26 points after the break, including a spectacular dunk over former Piston Andre Drummond in the game’s closing minutes — Detroit secured a 111-108 victory, givingthe franchise its best start to a season in a generation.

“It’s not hard to believe,” Cunningham said when asked whether he was surprised by Detroit’s 8-2 start only two years after its 14-68 season. “Even then, I couldn’t believe that we were in such a low.

“So to be here now, I feel like we’re where we’re supposed to be. We got a lot of guys that have always been big-time players, have always found ways to win at every level, and the NBA is tough. So we got here and we had to figure it out together. We were young, but now we’re getting our foot in and we’re figuring it out.”

It’s a lot easier to figure things out when your team is led by a player like Cunningham, who has backed up last season’s breakout performance — when he made his first All-Star and All-NBA appearances of his career and led Detroit to the playoffs — by leading the league in assists and putting up one impressive performance after another in the early going.

Cunningham had entered Sunday’s game having scored at least 30 points in three consecutive games and in four of Detroit’s last five. But after playing well below his standards in that first half — with just two points on 1-for-9 shooting from the field — he completely flipped things around, allowing Detroit to post its best record through 10 games since starting the 2005-06 season with a 9-1 record.

Cunningham’s 17 points in the third quarter immediately pulled Detroit back into the game after it trailed by as many as 13. And that was before his spectacular dunk over Drummond with just under two minutes to go helped in denying a late push by Tyrese Maxey (32 points, seven assists) and the 76ers (6-4).

“Man, he could get one of those every game,” Jalen Duren(21 points, 16 rebounds) said with a smile. “I don’t know why he doesn’t. But I love it. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of that. His game speaks for itself.

“I continue to say [he’s the] best guard in the NBA, so he going to make plays like that.”

Duren has also taken a massive step forward this season, with Sunday’s game marking the sixth time he has eclipsed 20 points this season. His 19.4 points per game this season dwarfs his averages from last season (11.8) and 2023-24 (13.8).

He has also played a significant role in Detroit’s third-ranked defense through 10 games, and he contributed another two steals and two blocks Sunday while continuing to be one of the league’s most imposing rebounders.

“He’s been dominant,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “The way he helps us protect the rim, the job he does on the boards, the threat that he is in the pick-and-roll and in the pocket … he’s a guy that can connect our group, too. He’s another guy who can facilitate and playmake, and then he’s an elite communicator, which has been a huge growth for him defensively. He’s talking to guys, always in the right spot, so I thought he was great again tonight.”

Cunningham and Duren also share the connection of having lived through that dismal 14-68 season two years ago, when it seemed like the Pistons were miles away from being relevant in the Eastern Conference. But as the league wakes up Monday morning, it will be Detroit looking down at the rest of the conference, and looking up at only one team — the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder — in the league standings.

“I think sky’s the limit,” Duren said when asked about his expectations. “I think we keep following J.B., keep working hard, keep defending, keep playing together … I think sky’s the limit at that point.”

For his part, Cunningham said that even when things were at their lowest ebb two seasons ago, his belief in himself kept him pushing him forward. It is that same belief that won’t allow him to be satisfied with only a good start to the season.

“Yeah, I mean, more than anything, my faith in myself, knowing that I was going to be successful in the NBA, knowing that I was going to do everything it took to be successful,” he said. “And I got lucky and fell into a franchise in the city that has the same mentality that I felt like it took for me to take the next step.

“So it has been a hell of a ride, man. It’s been a lot of ups and downs. It’s still early, though … I’m not above myself because we’re 8-2. I think this [success] is something that we all want, but we want something bigger than this. So we just want to keep our heads down and keep working.”br/]

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Detroit, MI

Detroit killer-for-hire becomes convicted liar-for-hire

Published

7 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

Detroit killer-for-hire becomes convicted liar-for-hire

A killer-for-hire is now a convicted liar-for-hire.

Confessed hit man Vincent Smothers, who is serving up to 100 years in prison for a string of contract murders, had more time added to his incarceration following recent convictions for lying to a court and possessing a contraband cellphone, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office.

In 2018, Smothers provided an affidavit to the Macomb County Circuit Court in which he lied about two shooting victims to help bolster another inmate’s claim that he’d shot the men in self-defense, Nessel said in a press release. The contraband cellphone, discovered in Smothers’ cell in May, uncovered the scheme, in which Smothers was paid to lie, Nessel said.

Smothers, 45, was sentenced Thursday in Muskegon County Circuit Court to 14 months to 58 months in prison for possessing a contraband cell phone. Smothers, an inmate in Freeland’s Saginaw Correctional Facility, was sentenced in Macomb County Circuit Court last month to one to 40 years for providing a false affidavit to a court, an offense that carries up to life in prison.

Smothers will serve the sentences consecutively — after his 50-year to 100-year second-degree murder sentence is completed — the Attorney General’s Office said. The recent sentences push Smothers’ earliest release date up two years to April 18, 2061.

“Providing false evidence undermines the hard work of the many police, prosecutors, judges, and jurors who work tirelessly to hold dangerous people accountable and make our communities safer,” Nessel said in a statement. “This conviction and sentence make clear that those who attempt to obstruct justice will face consequences, and my office will continue to defend the integrity of our criminal justice system with the full weight of the law.”

In 2010, Smothers was sentenced to 50 to 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to eight counts of second-degree murder. Smothers said he was paid by Detroit drug dealers to kill their rivals, although he also was contracted to kill Rose Cobb, the wife of Detroit Police Sgt. David Cobb, whom he fatally shot on Dec. 26, 2007, while she sat in her minivan in a CVS drugstore parking lot on East Jefferson.

In 2008, after being charged in connection with his wife’s killing, David Cobb killed himself.

A prison cellphone discovery kicks off Nessel’s investigation

In May, officials at the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon County found a contraband cell phone in Smothers’ cell. The discovery kicked off the Attorney General’s investigation, Nessel said.

When authorities inspected the phone, they found communications between Smothers and Shannon Anderson, an inmate in another prison serving up to 40 years following his 2010 second-degree murder conviction. The text messages laid out a scheme in which Smothers was to be paid to lie about the shooting victims to make the killings appear to have been in self-defense, according to Nessel.

Smothers signed the affidavit in 2018, providing false details about the shooting, according to the attorney general. In February 2020, Anderson’s lawyer filed a motion requesting a new hearing based on new evidence — Smothers’ affidavit, Nessel said.

Anderson also was charged with obstruction of justice in Clinton Township’s 41-B District Court. An April 2 preliminary examination is scheduled before Chief Judge Sebastian Lucido. Shannon’s attorney, Mariell Lehman, did not respond Friday to a phone call requesting comment.

When Nessel discussed the case last year, she said her office was investigating multiple cases in which Smothers was alleged to have lied about for money. Her office did not respond to an emailed request about the status of the other probes.

The crimes Smothers admitted to after his murder conviction included the 2004 killing of drug dealer Jamal Segars, for which Thelonious Searcy was convicted in 2005.

“We know that with Searcy and other cases, our understanding is that (Smothers) would provide information to shed light that wasn’t previously known about a case, even if he didn’t specifically take responsibility for the murder or shooting,” Nessel said during an August press conference.

Defense attorney plans to call Smothers as a witness in an upcoming trial

Smothers appeared in Wayne County Circuit Court on March 19, 2018, claiming he’d killed Segers, whose street name was “Q,” while the victim sat in a traffic jam on Conner near Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport in Detroit.

Searcy’s attorney, Paul Broschay, told The News Friday he plans to call Smothers as a witness during the trial.

The case has been snagged while defense attorneys and prosecutors wrangled over the admissibility of firearm evidence, Broschay said. The Michigan Supreme Court overruled the lower court’s decision to bar the defense from calling expert witnesses to try to discount the strength of the evidence, a scrap of brass that reportedly came from a spent shell casing, Broschay said.

A hearing to discuss the evidence is scheduled for May 11 before Wayne County Circuit Judge Margaret Van Houten.

Searcy was released from prison in 2021 after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled he should be granted a new trial. Although Searcy’s request for a new trial based on Smothers’ claim was denied by former Wayne County Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Kenny, the appellate court ruled Searcy’s attorney had not properly objected to alleged prosecutorial misconduct during a hearing.

Wayne County prosecutors have maintained Searcy’s guilt, although in 2023, the Detroit City Council granted him a Spirit of Detroit award that called him an “Exonerated hero.”

How many murders-for-hire has Vincent Smothers confessed to?

Although Smothers was convicted of eight murders, he confessed to 12 murders-for-hire. Smothers told police he and a partner were paid to kill a drug dealer inside his house on Runyon Street on Detroit’s east side in 2007. Four people were killed in the house, and the shell casings found at the scene were shot from the same AK-47 rifle Smothers had used in other hits.

At the time of Smothers’ confession in 2008, 14-year-old Davontae Sanford had been in prison for a few months, following his conviction on second-degree murder charges in connection with the Runyon Street quadruple homicide. Sanford confessed to the crime, although he claimed he’d been tricked into confessing by police and an attorney who was later disbarred.

Sanford in 2022 settled a federal lawsuit against the city for $7.5 million.

ghunter@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2134

@GeorgeHunter_DN

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Detroit, MI

Metro Detroit Weather Forecast, March 21, 2026 — 8:45 AM Update

Published

19 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

NEWS

Published: March 21, 2026 at 9:17 AM

After an unseasonably warm day across Metro Detroit to end the week on Friday, while we are cooler to start the weekend, 4Warn Meteorologist Bryan Schuerman is tracking more rain and even a few thunderstorms moving in by the end of the weekend.

The 4Warn Weather team tracks the latest weather alerts in Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan. Get the most updated information here: https://www.clickondetroit.com/weather/

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Detroit, MI

Farmington, Farmington Hills push for revitalization of Grand River

Published

1 day ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Farmington, Farmington Hills push for revitalization of Grand River

Farmington — Farmington and Farmington Hills officials are pushing to continue to revitalize a key commercial corridor through both cities, with one city leader saying residents eventually won’t recognize it because it will have evolved so much.

Both cities are using a mix of tools to develop Grand River Avenue, which runs from downtown Detroit all the way to Grand Rapids. It’s the main commercial thoroughfare in downtown Farmington and also runs through Farmington Hills. City officials want to bring in more commercial development, but also make it more pedestrian-friendly.

A 2025 market study through Gibbs Planning Group showed Farmington Hills’ side of the corridor has $1.2 billion in restaurant and retail spending over the course of a year.

But the study, which Farmington Hills Mayor Theresa Rich touched on during her State of the City address earlier this month, also indicated there’s demand for 20 new restaurants or retail businesses, and 400-500 new housing units in the corridor.

“We have the density, we have the consumer demand, and we have the traffic that can sustain the kind of investments that belong,” said Farmington Hills’ Economic Development Director Cristia Brockway.

Both cities are already making a concerted effort to revitalize Grand River Avenue east of downtown Farmington through the Grand River Corridor Improvement Authority, which was created more than a decade ago. It has focused on public projects and incentives to bring businesses, housing and landscaping to the area.

Farmington Hills’ improvement district along the corridor runs between Orchard Lake and Eight Mile roads; Farmington’s is between Mayfield and Hawthorne Streets. They’re the boundaries of the cities’ tax increment finance districts, which put money from property tax increases toward public projects.

For businesses and developers, Brockway said the city has a Housing and Urban Development grant of up to $30,000 and a Brownfield improvement grant of up to $200,000 that can assist projects. Brockway said these dollars can be used in demolition or for property owners “looking for help with their obsolete building.”

As far as public improvements go, Brockway said the city plans to bring beautification and pedestrian improvement projects valued around $250,000 to Farmington Hills City Council over the next five to eight years. Money generated from the district will pay for the projects, she said.

The city is also looking to incentivize murals in the district.

“It is going to be a continuous effort to always make this area a focus, and to make sure that when we’re adding art, we’re adding spaces, that we’re also maintaining them so things don’t look the same constantly and things don’t lose focus as far as updates,” said Brockway.

At her State of the City address, Rich said residents eventually won’t recognize Grand River.

“By the 2030s, you’re not going to recognize what the Grand River Corridor was. It will be transformed into a beautiful, vibrant, more walkable district,” she said.

On Farmington’s side, meanwhile, the city plans to collect more than $1 million from the district to put back into improvement projects. While most of the money would be spent on land acquisition, it would also be spent on a transportation study, streetscaping, a park assessment plan and gateway enhancements, said Assistant City Manager Chris Weber.

The city is especially focusing on the Farmington Junction building at 31505 Grand River for revitalization efforts.

“We are trying to spur redevelopment in the area. Obviously it’s all built up, but a lot of those areas are older commercial areas that need a refresh or need a development, a scrape and rebuild,” Weber said.

While Farmington didn’t conduct a market study for the district, Weber said “a lot of” Farmington Hills’ data would likely apply to Farmington’s district because they border each other.

Weber said the goal of the revitalization efforts is to create a “similar aesthetic” as motorists and pedestrians travel the corridor.

“We didn’t want one side of the road to look one way and another side of the road to look an entirely different way,” said Weber.

mbryan@detroitnews.com

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