DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Balancing the offensive attack in their 13th win of the year, Detroit had eight players score in double figures as they won in Brooklyn, 130-122. Saddiq Bey led the team with 25 points as Alec Burkes had 20. The win is a first for Detroit in Brooklyn in almost five years.
Bey said, “We just knew we had to start off better than that (giving up 150 points to Milwaukee) and just play better throughout the four quarters. So I think we were very eager just to nip that one in the bud and just keep going.”
After Bey and Burks, Jalen Duren added 17 as both Jaden Ivey and Killian Hayes had 16 points. Hamidou Diallo added 12 points and Isaiah Stewart and Bojan Bogdanovic both had 11 points. Detroit shot 50 percent overall and made 11 three-pointers for 40 percent going 23-of-26 at the free throw line (88 percent). Kyrie Irving led with 40 points for Brooklyn as the team shot 45 percent overall and just 34 percent from the arc.
“We had a big third quarter,” said Pistons head coach Dwane Casey. “The third quarter was at one time our nemesis coming out of the locker room. I think we’re graduating, we’re growing into being a competitive team out of the locker room.”
Detroit led, 30-27, after the first quarter but was then down, 59-58, at the half. Burk hit two free throws with 4.1 seconds left to pull the Pistons within one.
Scoring the first six points of the third quarter, Bey hit a three-pointer at 11:23 for the 64-59 lead. By 9:03, Detroit had a seven-point lead, 70-63, on Duren’s layup. Bey made it a 10-point lead, 77-67, on a layup with 7:27 to go and then Diallo had an eight-foot jumper at 4:14 to keep the lead at seven, 86-79. Diallo gave Detroit an 11-point lead with a jumper at 1:57, 97-86, and 20 seconds later Stewart canned two free throws for their largest lead of 13, 99-86. Detroit finished the third with an 11-point lead, 101-90.
Hayes gave Detroit a 14-point lead, 115-101, at 7:34 in the fourth quarter as Detroit kept their lead at double digits in the final quarter. Bogdanovic made two free throws with 19.1 seconds left to make it a final, 130-122, after Brooklyn was within five, 127-122, with 37 seconds left.
Detroit heads to Houston on Saturday to face the Rockets at 7:00 p.m. on the Bally Sports Network.
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