The Pistons defeat the Magic, 116-94, to win the series and advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Funny how quickly trends can change.
As the 2026 NBA Playoffs began, one of the most daunting things a team can face was said to be a 3-1 hole in a best-of-seven series.
In the league’s long history, 298 teams had done so and only 13 had survived.
That 285-13 record across, well, forever represented a 95.6% success rate, as close to a sure thing as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scoring 20.
Then we rolled into this weekend and, bang, two teams that had faced the 3-1 certain exits were on to the next round. First Philadelphia defied the odds by beating Boston in Game 7 on Saturday, then it was Detroit pushing back for the third consecutive game to dig out of that deficit against Orlando.
The Pistons won Game 7 Sunday at Little Caesars Arena 116-94 by dominating the second and third quarters (63-42) to save their status as the East’s top seed.
Orlando didn’t just let a 3-1 lead in games slip away; it was in front by 24 points shortly after halftime in Game 6, thus getting outscored by 58 over the series’ final 71 minutes.
Detroit advances to the East semifinal for the first time since 2008. Orlando heads into the offseason for some soul-searching. Here are four takeaways from the Pistons’ clincher:
1. Harris meets Game 7 head-on
Tobias Harris breaks down the victory after helping lead the Pistons to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Through his first 14 NBA seasons, spread across five different franchises, Tobias Harris had made it to only three Game 7 situations and had lost all three.
Here near the end of his 15th, he was the biggest reason Detroit prevailed.
The 6-foot-8 Harris provided the Pistons with the invaluable second scorer both teams had been seeking for much of the series.
The way Detroit’s Cade Cunningham and Orlando’s Paolo Banchero – the series’ two alphas – had been going, they almost canceled each other out in excellence.
That left it to Harris to step in as he hadn’t this season. He scored 30 points, more than in any game in 2025-26 and second-most in his 74 career playoff games.
“Ultimate vet,” teammate Jalen Duren said. “I think [coach J.B. Bickerstaff] calls him ‘the safety blanket.’ He’s a guy we can go to when we need a bucket. He’s been there for us all season.”
Harris long has been an effective scorer, a role player undecorated by All-Star appearances or scoring titles but worthy of every defense’s attention when the ball goes to him. He often had smaller defenders such as Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black and, especially posting up, proved too strong.
Harris riding shotgun to Cunningham put the necessary distance between their team and Orlando. Banchero’s biggest offensive helper was Desmond Bane, chipping in a below average 16. Detroit’s duo outscored the Magic’s 62-54. Smaller disparities in the Pistons’ favor flowed from there.
Oddly, when ESPN’s “Inside the NBA” studio crew mentioned Harris’ unsuccessful Game 7 history to Harris over a remote headset interview, the Pistons forward flashed back to a postseason failure that actually came in a Game 6. It was two years ago when the Knicks eliminated Harris and the 76ers, with Harris going scoreless.
“Listen, I had time to reflect on that,” Harris responded. “And I just knew, for us to win, this team needs me to be assertive and aggressive and all series long to continue to shoot the basketball.”
2. Paolo’s search for help goes Banch-rupt
Paolo Banchero scores 38 Points vs. the Pistons in Game 7 in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Banchero scarcely could have done more.
He logged 42 minutes, took a game-high 25 shots, hit 14 of them, went 4-for-7 from the arc, sank 6 of 8 free throws, grabbed nine rebounds, passed for six assists, blocked a shot by Duren from behind and finished with 38 points.
If only one other Orlando player had done half as much …
Not having forward Franz Wagner for the series’ final three games was the biggest obstacle. Wagner’s best performance came in his last appearance, a two-way beauty in Game 4 in which he scored 19 points and bothered Cunningham defensively.
That one ended early for Wagner, who strained his right calf and spent the final three games in street clothes. Orlando had survived playing without him 48 times in the regular season, but three out of seven proved too much.
Center Wendell Carter Jr. turned out to be his inconsistent self. Suggs was streaky and unreliable, shooting 29.9% in the series. And Bane never did shoulder enough of the offensive load.
By the end of the third quarter, with Detroit in complete command 83-64, Bane had taken only seven shots and scored 10 points. Banchero had 32 on 12-for-22 shooting while eight teammates were a combined 10-for-37.
The Magic never shook Bane free of Detroit’s defensive attention and Bane never forced the issue.
Someone in the postgame media noted that Orlando has gone 1-7 in playoff games when Banchero scores 30 points or more. Rather than an argument for having him shoot less, that sounds like he’s being forced into scoring by necessity, his team short on other outlets. It lacked them in this series.
3. Order has been restored atop the East
In a couple days, the Pistons will regain their swagger.
Getting pushed to the brink by the East’s No. 8 seed will begin to recede, and the self-assuredness built in crafting their 60-22 regular-season record will be revived.
Had Orlando completed its upset, there’s no telling how topsy-turvy the Eastern Conference might have gone over the next two rounds.
This way, the No. 1 seed is present and accounted for, leaning into defense again as it had all year, and maybe a little better off for having been pushed so far.
You know, the ol’ ‘whatever doesn’t kill you…’ philosophy.
“You have to be battle-tested,” Bickerstaff said. “And you have to be able to respond. To do what we did this series only made us better for the next one.”
Points have been hard to come by in some recent stretches but the defense Detroit threw at Orlando will be a problem for whichever East rivals have to cope with it going forward. It ranks first (101.9 points allowed per 100 possessions) in efficiency among the teams still standing.
4. For their next trick, the Magic will…?
Any good prestidigitator knows their tricks rely first and foremost on surprise. But reaching and sticking in the first round three years in a row is the opposite of surprise.
Losing to Cleveland in seven games in 2024, then to Boston in five a year ago, and now to Detroit in seven is like failing three times to guess the right card.
Adding Bane was Orlando’s big chess move last summer. Management felt the solid citizen and multi-level scorer would lead a young group ready to take the next step. Injuries argued otherwise during the season, and Bane himself underperformed at the end.
“We were a game away from moving onto the next round,” Bane said, “after all we had been through this season with injuries and adversity. We felt we were right there to rewrite the story. And we didn’t. It’s a terrible feeling for sure.”
While coach Jamahl Mosley said the expected things about learning and growing from another first-round exit, Banchero wasn’t so sure.
“I want to say yes but we’ve haven’t been out of the first round,” the Magic’s best player said. “Going off the last three years, the answer is no. The nice answer would be yes, but honestly speaking, I can’t say that we’re good enough to be in the Finals or Eastern finals, because the last three years we’ve had the same result. That’s your answer.”
That’s their challenge. The Pistons are on to bigger things.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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