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The Detroit Pistons can complete another historic comeback against the Orlando Magic. The Cleveland Cavaliers will settle for one more home victory over the Toronto Raptors.
The Pistons host the Magic in their Game 7 on Sunday in a late-afternoon contest, while the Cavaliers and Raptors wrap up the first round in primetime.
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The winners move on to meet in an Eastern Conference semifinal series, which begins Tuesday in either Detroit, Cleveland or Toronto.
Detroit faced a 3-1 deficit to Orlando in its first-round series in 2003 before winning the final three games. The Pistons are the only top seed to do so against the No. 8 seed since the first round was expanded to a best-of-seven series the same year.
They are hoping to do it again.
After a 116-109 win in Game 5, the Pistons rallied from a 24-point second-half deficit to defeat the Magic 93-79 on Friday and send the series back to Detroit.
Orlando missed 23 straight shots from the field, including 13 from 3-point range, the most by any team in a playoff game during the play-by-play era that started in 1996-97. This was part of a 35-5 Pistons run.
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“Having your back against the wall really shows who you are,” said Detroit point guard Cade Cunningham, who is averaging 32.5 points in the series. “There has been a lot of adversity so far in this series. I think we have learned a lot about who we are as a team and individually, and what we are made of. It has been a fun series. We want to get back to the crib and handle our business back home.”
The Magic still hope to become the seventh No. 8 seed to eliminate the conference’s top seed in the first round, but they need to bounce back quickly.
“The series ain’t over. I know they’ve clawed their way to tie it up 3-3. We won a game to start the series, and we’ve just got to go do it again,” forward Paolo Banchero said.
In a first round where the road team has won 17 games in seven other first-round series, the Cavaliers and Raptors have maintained serve, with the home team winning each game.
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The Cavaliers’ 2024 first-round series against the Magic went the same way,…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/first-round-concludes-pair-game-222502300.html
Author : JOE REEDY
Publish date : 2026-05-02 22:25:00
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