Magic avoid another collapse against Cade Cunningham-less Pistons

At this point in the season, only one of these teams was playing for something. The Pistons clinched the No. 1 seed last week, while the Magic are fighting tooth and nail to move up in the play-in seeding.

The East's best team was also significantly shorthanded, missing Tobias Harris, Isaiah Stewart, Duncan Robinson and, most importantly Cade Cunningham, who was playing himself into the MVP conversation before suffering a collapsed lung last month.

Predicatably, Orlando made them pay.

This is no diss to Daniss Jenkins, an awesome young guard, or Ausar Thompson, Kevin Huerter or Marcus Sasser, among others. But no Cunningham allowed the Magic to be more aggressive in the passing lanes and at the point-of-attack.

They forced 19 Pistons turnovers -- evidently leading to 33 extra Magic points. Orlando was a plus-19 in points-off-turnovers and a plus-seven in fastbreak points -- two critical areas that resulted in their 43rd win of 2025-26.

Magic avoid another catastrophic collapse:

The last time these two teams met, it was a tale of two halves for the Magic. They led by nine at halftime, but were outscored 56-35 in the second half, where they shot just 30.8 percent from the floor and 5-of-23 from distance.

It was one of their worst halves of the season. In this game, the Magic saw themselves up 11 at halftime, hoping there wouldn't be a repeat of their early March matchup.

The Magic pushed their advantage up to 27 in the third quarter, but a 33-11 Pistons cut the deficit to four with just under five minutes. Thankfully, a pair of Banchero free throws -- followed by:

• A Jalen Suggs 3-pointer
• A Goga Bitadze layup
• A corner triple from Tristan da Silva
• A lob from Suggs to Bitadze

Extended the Magic lead back up to 16 with two minutes left.

Welcome back, Anthony Black!

Black described himself as a little "winded" at the end of the first half. But he looked good in his first game back from an abdominal strain. In 15 minutes, he scored 14 points and a pair of dimes on 4-of-11 shooting.

He had some rust, but not as much as one may expect. We'll see how much he's able to ramp up over the next week-plus, which will be critical to how far they advance in the play-in -- and (potentially) beyond that.