There is no story better in the NBA right now than what the Detroit Pistons have achieved this season. Around this time last year, the Pistons were the laughingstock of the league when they finished the 2023-24 season with a 14-68 record after a historic 28-game losing streak. With a month left this season, the Pistons are 37-29, tied with the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers for the 4-seed in the Eastern Conference.
If you told someone last year that the Pistons would finish with 40 or more wins and be in the mix for home-court advantage in the East playoff picture, you probably would have been forced to go to therapy. It is no longer crazy to believe that Detroit is a good team because they’ve proven to be a legitimate threat.
All it took was a new sense of belief and leadership for Detroit to turn around in the blink of an eye.
Although the Pistons didn’t make a huge splash by adding an All-Star or All-NBA talent in the offseason, Trajan Langdon reinvented this struggling, young team by bringing in established veterans. Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Malik Beasley became the three oldest players in Detroit and immediately made a difference by helping establish accountability.
Perhaps the most important addition for this Pistons organization was hiring JB Bickerstaff as their head coach after he was let go by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Bickerstaff, who won 22 games in his first season with the Cavs, had tallied three straight winning seasons with at least 44 wins in Cleveland. He even took the Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2024 before he was ultimately fired.
What made Bickerstaff the perfect choice for the Pistons was not only his winning experience but also his track record of working with and getting the most out of young, high-potential players. The 46-year-old coach achieved this with James Harden when he was with the Houston Rockets and did so again with players like Darius Garland and Evan Mobley in Cleveland.
This season with the Pistons, Bickerstaff has directly impacted Cade Cunningham’s rise to becoming an All-Star and possible All-NBA talent, as well as reinventing Detroit’s image, which had been destroyed over the years.
Say what you want about the Pistons, but this relentless team has not backed down from any fight this season. That is why Bickerstaff has them in a position to contend with the Bucks and Pacers, two franchises that have recently made trips to the Eastern Conference Finals.
JB Bickerstaff turns Pistons around immediately
There are many deserving coaches in the mix for Coach of the Year this season. Kenny Atkinson is the clear favorite due to the Cavaliers’ historic season, and Mark Daigneault will also receive consideration once again after winning the award last season.
If you look solely at the turnaround and improvements of a coach’s team, Bickerstaff should be the clear favorite for this award.
Bickerstaff inherited a team that finished with the worst record in the league a season ago and appeared to have no sense of direction other than Cunningham being a young star. From 14 wins to 37 and counting this year, Bickerstaff has made the Pistons one of the best defensive teams in the league with much more depth than many imagine.
This season, the Pistons rank ninth in defensive rating. Since the All-Star break, Detroit ranks third in the same category, which is why it’s not a coincidence that they have gone 8-3 during this span. This 11-game stretch since the All-Star break has seen the Pistons pick up wins over the Boston Celtics and LA Clippers, while almost winning on the road against a red-hot Golden State Warriors team.
No matter how you look at it, Bickerstaff has made the greatest impact out of any coach in the league this season, and many are taking notice of his accomplishments. Magic Johnson has showered the Pistons with praise, Carmelo Anthony has talked at length about the rising potential of this team, and Bickerstaff was recently recognized as the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month in February.
Before Bickerstaff was named Coach of the Month, the Pistons had not seen any of their coaches receive such recognition since the late Flip Saunders earned this honor twice during the 2007-08 season. Detroit advanced to the NBA Finals that year after going 59-23 during the regular season.
While the Pistons coach is very appreciative of such an honor and the attention he is getting, Bickerstaff only wants to put the spotlight on his team as a whole.
“I don’t see it as an individual award. I see it as a collection of all the things that everybody that’s worked with these guys and then the work that the guys have done into representation,” Bickerstaff said after being named the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month. “This isn’t just about one person. Everything we do is about the collective.
“This award, or whatever you want to call it, is about the group. It’s about the guys. It’s about the assistant coaches, the work they put in with the guys.”
More importantly than anything else, the Pistons believe in Bickerstaff as their head coach.
Cunningham, Jalen Duren, and other youthful talents on this team have allowed their new coach to teach, challenge, and hold them accountable. Harris, Hardaway Jr., and Beasley have embraced Bickerstaff consistently leaning on them to be the veteran leaders of the locker room every day.
The new winning philosophy and belief Bickerstaff instilled immediately resonated with his group. That is why Hardaway and the rest of this roster are willing to fight for their head coach every game.
“He is a very passionate coach,” Hardaway told The Detroit News after the Pistons’ 123-103 win over the Washington Wizards on Monday. “He is passionate when we are out there on the floor. He is very passionate when we are in the film room. He wants us to get after it. The way we play is who he is.”
Duren has also endorsed Bickerstaff’s Coach of the Year campaign, stating that his head coach has helped establish the team’s “culture” since Day 1.
The Pistons are in the playoff hunt. This is a sentence that hadn’t been uttered for quite some time. As the playoffs draw near, Detroit has a clear opportunity to outplay the Bucks and Pacers to claim the 4-seed in the East, an accomplishment that would open many eyes across the league.
With 16 games remaining on their schedule, Duren and the Pistons are locked in to prepare for the playoffs.
“That is where all our attention is at,” Duren said on Monday. “We are preparing for bigger and better things. Still trying to make a playoff push. We got a lot of good games ahead of us, so this is really the time to lock in. Obviously, we got guys who haven’t been there, guys who have been there, so it’s a lot of teaching going on at this point in the season.
“We are gearing up to make a run.”
Pistons, Bucks, Pacers battling for home-court advantage
The Pistons have 16 games remaining on their schedule. The Bucks and Pacers both have 18 games left. These three teams are currently tied for the 4-seed in the Eastern Conference, with pivotal matchups remaining.
While the Cavaliers, Celtics, and New York Knicks have separated themselves from the rest of the conference, this middle portion of the standings took a wild turn on Tuesday night when the Pacers defeated the Bucks 115-114 thanks to Tyrese Haliburton’s wild, game-winning four-point play.
TYRESE HALIBURTON CLUTCH 4-PT PLAY OPPORTUNITY TO POTENTIALLY WIN THE GAME
pic.twitter.com/IEBLa24VFN
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 12, 2025
This shot from Haliburton has completely flipped the script in the East, making the Bucks vulnerable the rest of the way.
Indiana defeated Detroit three out of four times this season, giving the Pacers the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Pistons have also lost their first two meetings of the year against the Bucks, including a hard-fought 127-120 overtime loss on Nov. 13. Two more games against Milwaukee remain on the schedule, and they are the Pistons’ final two games of the season.
These two battles, one in Detroit and one in Milwaukee to end the regular season, could directly influence which team ends up with home-court advantage as the 4-seed. It will also determine who ultimately drops to the 6-seed and likely has to play New York in the first round of the playoffs.
Perhaps the biggest reason Haliburton’s shot was important on Tuesday night was that it gave the Pacers their first win over the Bucks this season. The Bucks won each of their first two meetings with the Pacers, and these teams will meet again in Milwaukee on Saturday.
All that matters for the Pistons, Bucks, and Pacers at this point in the season is winning. Detroit and Milwaukee have the easiest paths to doing so, as they own the seventh and eighth easiest remaining schedules, respectively. Indiana’s remaining strength of schedule is ranked 20th in the league.
While the Bucks and Pacers have a winning record and over 20 wins on their home courts this season, both teams hold losing records on the road. On the flip side, Detroit is 18-14 at home and 19-15 on the road.
Whether at home or away, the Pistons have proven that they can scrap and claw for 48 minutes on any court in the league. That is what makes them dangerous in the hunt for the East’s 4-seed. If we know anything about the Pistons heading into the final stretch of the regular season, it’s that Detroit Basketball is back!
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