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Cade Cunningham explained why he ‘loves’ competing against the Celtics
"They’re a championship team; they’ve got a championship identity. Play a great brand of basketball, so it’s always a test for us coming in."
The NBA season is still young, but at this moment it’s the Detroit Pistons who sit atop the Eastern Conference standings with a league-best 21-5 record.
Detroit handled its business down the stretch on Monday night, pulling off a 112-105 win over the Celtics at TD Garden. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said the game had a playoff-like feel to it.
Even without Jayson Tatum, the Celtics are in the mix for playoff position in the East. As the young Pistons continue to ascend, they still view the Celtics as a team to measure themselves against, guard Cade Cunningham said.
“They’re a championship team; they’ve got a championship identity,” Cunningham told reporters, per MassLive. “Play a great brand of basketball, so it’s always a test for us coming in. It’s a game we love coming in for because we know that they’re going to test us and play good basketball.”
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Theese Celtics are obviously quite different from the 2024 squad that won it all. Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet are all playing elsewhere. Tatum is still rehabbing from his torn achilles injury.
But, with Jaylen Brown averaging a career-high 29.3 points per game, scoring help from Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, and steady contibutions from Neemias Queta, Mazzulla has been able to mix-and-match role players and answer some of the question marks this team entered the season with.
“I think before the season, we certainly had the depth,” Mazzulla said before the game. “It was just a matter of how they were going to make an impact. It wasn’t a matter of if they could, it was in what way.
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“Was it Josh [Minott] at the four? Who of our guys would take on starting the game being the defender and who is going to take that on later in the game? We knew that we could and I think you’ve seen the product of what we call our depth and our ability to impact the game in different ways.”
The Celtics dropped to fourth in the Eastern Conference with the loss. Detroit remained in first. But, Cunningham hasn’t forgotten about the tough times that helped this Pistons group, including the historic 28-game losing streak they had in 2023.
“I always remember where we’ve been,” Cunningham said. “Carry that with us everywhere we go. We don’t get too high because we’ve been at the bottom of it. We’ve been where we’ve been searching for answers. But also not getitng too low, knowing that it can always turn around. We have all the talent in the room to get the job done.”
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