Magic vs. Pistons: Who will survive physical East clash? Series keys, schedule and prediction

Series schedule (all times Eastern)

Game 1: Sun., April 19, at Detroit (6:30 p.m., NBC)
Game 2: Wed., April 22, at Detroit (7 p.m., ESPN)
Game 3: Sat., April 25, at Orlando (1 p.m., Peacock)
Game 4: Mon. April 27, at Orlando (time and network TBD)
*Game 5: Wed., April 29, at Detroit (time and network TBD)
*Game 6: Fri., May 1, at Orlando (time and network TBD)
*Game 7: Sun., May 3, at Detroit (time and network TBD)

*if necessary

Series odds

(Via BetMGM)

Detroit Pistons (-500)
Orlando Magic (+375)

What we know about the Pistons

Before the season, we wondered what Detroit might have in store after last season’s historic breakthrough. The answer, it turned out: another historic breakthrough.

Just two seasons after winning 14 games and finishing with the NBA’s worst record, the Pistons went 60-22, leading the Eastern Conference nearly wire-to-wire. Detroit took the top spot in the East on Nov. 7 and never let it go, fueled to the top by All-Star play from point guard Cade Cunningham and center Jalen Duren — both of whom could wind up meriting All-NBA selections, now that Cunningham’s eligible — and an elite defense that’s been an absolute meat grinder to play against, night in and night out.

J.B. Bickerstaff’s crew finished the regular season second in fewest points allowed per possession, behind only the Thunder. They tied for first in how frequently they forced turnovers, and prevented shot attempts at the rim at a top-five level. When opponents did get one off, Detroit held them to the league’s second-lowest interior field goal percentage, with ace reserve Isaiah Stewart posting by far the stingiest mark of any defender to contest at least 100 up-close looks.

Detroit led the NBA in blocks and steals, and tied for second in deflections — disruption, disruption, disruption. They also, it’s worth noting, finished dead last in opponent free-throw attempt rate, sending opponents to the charity stripe more often than any other team in the league — par for the course, considering how physically guys like Duren, Stewart, Ausar Thompson, Ron Holland and Javonte Green play at the point of attack.

That’s not a bug, though. It’s a feature — the distillation of an identity, the delivery and relentless repetition of a message: Playing against us is gonna be hard, every single possession, and it’s gonna friggin’ hurt.

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It’s a mantra that kept Detroit on the right side of the scoreboard more than 70% of the time despite a below-average half-court offensive efficiency mark, despite finishing in the bottom-third of the league in 3-point makes, attempts and accuracy, and despite lacking a dependable source of shot creation outside of Cunningham … or, at least, appearing to lack one, right up until two-way revelation Daniss Jenkins averaged 16 points and seven dimes per game while shooting 41% from 3-point land after Cunningham suffered a collapsed lung.

That message, that mantra, that identity kept Detroit razor-sharp while Cunningham convalesced. Including the game when he sustained the injury five minutes into the opening quarter, the Pistons went 9-3 without their MVP-candidate point guard, outscoring their opponents by 10.1 points per 100 possessions, with two of their three losses coming in overtime.

The rest of the Pistons’ rotation just stepped up and kept rolling, locking up home-court advantage and setting the stage for what would be another historic breakthrough: Detroit’s first trip to the Finals since 2005.

What we know about the Magic

They’re capable of playing physical, aggressive, connected basketball. It just might take the threat of extinction to get it out of them.

Two nights after looking like they’d very much like to end their next huddle with “1-2-3, Cancun,” the Magic came out for their second play-in game looking like they’d undergone a collective exorcism. Or, maybe, a factory reset — a hard reboot that returned them to the kind of hard-nosed squad that had finished second in the NBA in defensive efficiency in each of the last two seasons.

We hadn’t seen that version of the Magic much this season. We were supposed to see something even better — an iteration that married the elite stopping power of Jamahl Mosley’s previous squads with a revamped offense, one decongested and supercharged by the arrival of sharpshooter Desmond Bane.

The price Orlando paid for Bane — four first-round draft picks — was awfully dear. But if his high-volume, high-efficiency shooting and downhill driving game could help smooth out the rough edges of an often staid and stagnant offense, delivering an attack capable of propelling Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Co. past the first round for the first time, it’d be worth the hefty cost.

The good news: Bane largely did his job, averaging 20-4-4 on 48/39/91 shooting splits while leading the team in minutes and playing in all 82 games. Orlando’s offense improved by 4.4 points-per-100 year-over-year. The Magic scored like a near-league-average offense in Bane’s minutes — that might not sound like much, but considering “league-average” is a level they haven’t reached since Dwight Howard left, it kind of is — and actually looked damn good when Bane shared the floor with Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black in a three-guard alignment that blitzed opponents by nearly 14 points-per-100.

The bad news: That’s about all that really went right.

Injuries again reared their ugly head, with Banchero (left groin strain), Wagner (right high ankle sprain), Suggs (left hip contusion, right MCL sprain) and Black (left lateral abdominal strain) combining to miss 101 games. The quartet that was supposed to form the core of a contender — Banchero, Wagner, Bane and Suggs — has shared the floor for just 214 minutes across 20 games this season, not nearly enough to develop the kind of chemistry that can drive a winner.

With the exception of Black, who averaged 15-4-4 on improved shooting in his third season, none of Orlando’s other recent draftees showed signs of emerging as key contributors. The defense slipped, forcing turnovers less frequently, allowing a higher shooting percentage at the rim, and dropping from No. 2 in points allowed per possession last season all the way down to No. 14. They went just 23-30 against .500-or-better opposition, and 10-20 against teams that had a top-10 point differential.

To top it all off, Banchero — the No. 1 overall pick, Rookie of the Year, All-Star, maxed-out cornerstone — largely underwhelmed, putting up nice counting stats (22.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game) but doing so while shooting just 50.7% on 2-pointers and 30.5% on 3-pointers, without making a significant defensive impact, and with the Magic posting a better point differential with him off the court than on it. (Again.)

It was all just so … uninspiring. It looked like things would end with an appropriately wearying fizzle, with Orlando losing to a Celtics team resting all of its starters in the regular-season finale before getting outclassed by a Sixers team without Joel Embiid in the first play-in game, with Banchero shooting 7-for-22 with six turnovers.

But then: the win over Charlotte, with Banchero taking the fight to the Hornets front line from the opening tip, with every Orlando defender pressuring the ball and nailing hair-on-fire rotations, and with a level of aggression and intention that so often seemed so lacking in Central Florida. It was a sight for sore eyes; more than that, it worked. It served as a reminder that, even if Mosley’s voice isn’t carrying quite like it used to, this team can summon something better than what we’ve seen.

The challenge now: doing it again, against the best team in the East.

Head-to-head

The two teams split the season series, 2-2.

Detroit took the first meeting back in October, hanging 135 points on a Magic team that stumbled out of the starting blocks behind double-doubles for Cunningham (30 points, 10 assists, six rebounds), Duren (21 points, 13 rebounds) and Thompson (12 points, 11 rebounds, six assists). Orlando returned serve a month later, eliminating the Pistons from NBA Cup group play with a 112-109 win that featured a picture-perfect intentional free-throw miss and rebound by Cunningham that would’ve led to a game-tying triple try by Duncan Robinson 3 … had Anthony Black not soared out to block the shot:

The Pistons scored a 106-92 win in March largely on the strength of their defense, holding Orlando to just 35 second-half points and 38% shooting for the game while forcing 19 Magic turnovers that led to 26 Piston points. Cunningham led the way with 29 points, 11 assists and six rebounds as Detroit cruised despite going just 4-for-30 from 3-point range — tied for the second-fewest long-distance connections in a victory by any team this season.

The Magic knotted things up in the final week of the season, as the Pistons came to town missing Cunningham, Stewart, Robinson, Tobias Harris and Caris LeVert, all but inviting their hosts to capitalize. Orlando obliged in a 123-107 win, led by 31 points on 16 shots from Banchero:

Injuries impacted the series some. Banchero missed one Magic win, while Cunningham and half the Pistons’ rotation missed the other. Black missed Detroit’s March win; Wagner missed the final two meetings, which the teams split.

Matchup to watch

How the Magic try to slow down Cade

Cunningham largely had his way with the Magic during the regular season, averaging 32.7 points, 10.7 assists and 8.3 rebounds in 37.7 minutes per game across three meetings with Orlando. His combination of size, strength, skill, vision and pace makes him an exceptionally tough cover for most teams, but Orlando doesn’t have a like-sized, just-right matchup for him.

He’s too big for Suggs and Bane, and too strong for the reedier Black. He’s too quick off the bounce for Banchero and Wagner, and too savvy at getting to his spots for youngsters like da Silva and rookie Noah Penda. Go over the top of his ball screens, and he’ll put you in jail, keeping you on his back as he either sprints to the rim, patiently surveys the scene in search of the best shot, or works his way into contact to draw a trip to the foul line. Go under them or leave your big in drop coverage — a reasonable enough ploy against a 34% 3-point shooter — and you still run the risk that he’ll just pull up and dot your eye with a 3.

Send help or crank up the heat by blitzing or trapping his pick-and-rolls, and he’ll beat you with the pass, threading the needle to a rolling big man or firing a skip across the court to a waiting shooter. Show him too much of any one coverage, and he’ll pick that lock in about two possessions, diagnosing how to get what he wants and dissecting you until he gets it.

Mosley might open the series looking to make Cunningham prove he’s all the way back from the collapsed lung; in a three-game end-of-season cameo, he shot just 8-for-25 outside the restricted area. If a week of practice and conditioning work has Cade back in form with a rediscovered rhythm, though, the Magic will need some fresh answers: Detroit scored 119.1 points-per-100 against them in Cunningham’s minutes, a rate that would‘ve ranked third in the league in offensive efficiency this season, dominating the run of play. Orlando can ill afford a similar command performance if it hopes to upset the No. 1 seed.

Key question

Can Orlando score enough to make this a series?

The version of the Magic we saw on Friday against Charlotte — one where Banchero, Wagner, Bane and Suggs are all getting downhill and touching the paint to create good looks and draw contact, where the bigs and wings are pounding the offensive glass — might have a shot. But that was predicated on Orlando showing up with the intent to bully a smaller, thinner, more finesse-oriented team. Detroit is … um … not that.

If the Pistons meet that level of force in kind without buckling, committing live-ball turnovers to fuel Orlando’s transition game and 24-second violations that limit their shots on goal, what else can the Magic turn to against Detroit? If they can’t out-physical the likes of Thompson, Cunningham, Harris, Holland and Co. on the perimeter, and if they find themselves running into the brick walls of Duren and Stewart at the cup, can they generate and knock down enough 3s to stay connected? (They shot just 30.9% from deep against Detroit as a team during the regular season.)

All season long, it’s felt like Orlando’s offense has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. If they can’t find a higher level of cohesion, and quick, that Detroit defense might just grind it into dust.

Prediction: Pistons in four

I was pleasantly surprised to see Orlando turn in such a spirited, pugnacious performance to survive the play-in. But I don’t think “we’re gonna rough you up” is going to work against a bigger, better bully — one that’s on a mission to earn the respect that seems to continue to elude it in the eyes of the broader basketball cognoscenti, no matter how many games it wins or how impressively it wins them. I think the Pistons make a statement, take care of business quickly, and then ask who’s next.