NBA playoffs: Pistons hang tough in New York to force a Game 6

NEW YORK — J.B. Bickerstaff’s message to his team heading into a do-or-die Game 5 was simple.

“We’ve overcome a ton of odds, right?” he said before the game. “So why not one more time?”

The Pistons answered his call, grinding through a rugged, physical, often-sloppy Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden to extend the first-round series with a 106-103 victory.

Game 5 was a slugfest in a phone booth: eight ties, 14 lead changes, 21 combined missed free throws, 51 personal fouls, neither team able to gain more than 10 points of separation. Once again, the contest was decided in crunch time; this time, though, it was the Pistons who prevailed in the clutch, with Detroit star Cade Cunningham (24 points on 6-for-17 shooting, eight rebounds, eight assists, two steals and a block in 37 minutes) knocking down a pair of free throws with five seconds remaining to stave off elimination.

Cunningham’s counterpart, Knicks star Jalen Brunson, turned in his least effective outing of the playoffs, scoring 16 points on 4-for-16 shooting with seven assists and three rebounds in 36 minutes. The NBA’s newly minted Clutch Player of the Year did not score a point in the final five minutes, spending part of it on the sideline after appearing to roll his right ankle with just over three minutes remaining. Brunson and Josh Hart, who’d gone back to the locker room after a hard fall following a mid-air collision with Cunningham, both found themselves stuck at the scorer’s table for 2 1/2 minutes without a stoppage in play — or head coach Tom Thibodeau calling his final timeout.

Styles make rockfights

The Pistons were the aggressors out of the gate, racing out to a 9-2 lead as the Knicks — who committed a shot-clock violation on their very first possession — looked a step slow getting into their offense early. New York began to perk up, though, with Karl-Anthony Towns and Hart running a give-and-go for a loud KAT dunk that sent a charge through Madison Square Garden:

Neither team could buy a bucket for most of the first quarter, though, combining to shoot just 16-of-48 from the field and 4-of-16 from 3-point range. A couple of transition baskets and a pair of Brunson free throws in the closing seconds of the quarter gave New York a 23-22 edge after 12 minutes.

The physical, grimy battle continued, with Knicks backup center Mitchell Robinson dominating on the boards to the tune of nine rebounds, seven offensive, in 12 minutes of first-half floor time. The brawl on the glass resulted in some friendly fire for the Pistons, with Jalen Duren inadvertently hitting teammate Tobias Harris in the face under the basket, sending the veteran forward to the ground in pain:

Harris would bounce back in a hurry, though, scoring seven quick points and making a couple of strong defensive plays — one of which was actually an uncalled goaltend, but hey, Detroit was due — to help fuel a mid-quarter run that put Detroit back on top of a Knicks team struggling mightily to create clean looks or make contested ones.

New York kept grinding, though. With Brunson off to an unseasonably frigid start — just 1-for-6 from the floor and 4-for-7 from the free-throw line in the first half — OG Anunoby and Towns combined for 22 first-half points while Hart dished four assists, helping stake the Knicks to a 50-49 lead at intermission.

Both teams battled foul trouble throughout the first half, with the officials brandishing a tighter whistle than they had earlier in the series. The Pistons’ Duren picked up three personals, and with backup center Isaiah Stewart again sidelined by knee inflammation and third big Paul Reed already pressed into duty, Bickerstaff had to go against his preferences and play some small-ball, sliding the über-athletic Thompson to the 5. The bad news? That further opened up the boards for New York, which had 12 offensive rebounds in the half.

The good news? It allowed us to see Ausar protect the rim, which he did with extreme prejudice:

Cade in full

Cunningham came out of the locker room looking to put his imprint on the game early in the third quarter. The All-Star point guard pushed the ball in transition and lofted a lob for a Thompson alley-oop dunk, ripped the ball out of Anunoby’s hands on a drive to the basket and began slicing up New York in the pick-and-roll, getting off the ball when the Knicks blitzed him and trusting Duren to make plays out of the short roll — most of them ending in a Thompson finish at the rim.

The result: A 20-9 run to give the Pistons a double-digit lead over a Knicks team frustrated by both Detroit’s on-point defense and what they clearly felt was an inconsistent whistle for stretches. A late surge would get New York back within three, at 77-74, entering the final frame.

The teams traded the lead early in the fourth, leaving them where they’d been so often in this series: in a one-possession affair in crunch time. Cunningham, Duren, Thompson and the rest of the Pistons made just enough plays to withstand late 3s by Bridges and Anunoby to keep their remarkable breakthrough season going and send this best-of-seven series back to Detroit for Game 6 on Thursday.