Detroit became the league’s first team to lose 27 straight games in a season, falling 118-112 to the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night.
DETROIT (AP) — The
“I’ve been through tough playoff losses, and this is relative to that,” said Williams, who led Phoenix and New Orleans to postseason appearances. “When you lose a playoff game, when you get eliminated, this kind of feels like that.”
Cunningham did his part to give the team a shot to finally win, but he didn’t have much help and even he had a turnover late in the game that appeared to be unforced.
The No. 1 pick overall from the 2021 NBA draft had a message for his teammates in the locker room after the latest loss.
“Don’t jump off the boat,” he said. “We’ve got to stay together. Right now is the easiest time to stand off and be on your own, but we need to continue to lean on each other and continue to push each other, and hold each other accountable more than ever now.”
Bojan Bogdanovic did score 23 points before fouling out and after leaving Cam Johnson wide open for a 3-pointer that gave Brooklyn a six-point lead with 1:40 to go.
“We had a few breakdowns,” Williams said. “It just cost us.”
Jaden Ivey, the No. 5 pick overall last year, missed 9 of 12 shots as the Nets backed off him and welcomed the guard to shoot.
In the final minute, fed-up fans started to chant, “Sell the team! Sell the team!” though Pistons owner Tom Gores was not in the building to hear it.
Gores recently spoke with reporters remotely, and passed along his apologies to the fans for the disappointing season while standing by Williams and general manager Troy Weaver.
“Change is coming,” he said. “I’m just saying in terms of Monty, Troy, they’ll be in place.”
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