Knicks fall to Pistons as Cade Cunningham outduels Jalen Brunson
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson waits to shoot a free throw in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Detroit Pistons at Madison Square Garden on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
In a perfect world, one in which the fan vote reflects what we’ve seen on the floor this season, Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham might be starting together for the Eastern Conference All-Stars. But on this night, they were on opposing sides and dueling through an “anything you can do, I can do better’’ run to the final buzzer.
Brunson already has won over the skeptics with his performance since arriving in New York. Cunningham is quickly ascending to the same sort of All-Star and All-NBA status for the rapidly improving Pistons. And the case for each was on full display Monday night at the Garden.
Cunningham had 36 points in the Pistons’ 124-119 win. The Knicks got 31 points and 11 assists from Brunson, 27 points from Mikal Bridges and 26 points and 12 rebounds from Karl-Anthony Towns, who played through apparent pain after hitting his right thumb on the backboard early in the game.
The Knicks trailed by as many as 11 early in the game and were down nine early in the fourth quarter, but Brunson’s three-point play with 4:07 left cut the deficit to two and caused Jalen Duran to foul out.
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Cunningham, who had 29 points in the second half, scored the Pistons’ next six points, giving Detroit a 118-114 lead with 1:14 left.
Bridges, who scored 19 points and shot 5-for-6 from outside the arc in the second half, sank a three-pointer to bring the Knicks within one with 1:26 left.
After Cunningham missed a jumper and Towns committed an offensive foul, the Knicks made sure to get the ball out of Cunningham’s hands. The Pistons swung it around the outside on consecutive possessions, and Malik Beasley (22 points in 17:38 off the bench) sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around a floater by Brunson to put the game out of reach.
Beasley’s second three-pointer came with 6.3 seconds to play and the 24-second clock winding down toward zero.
“You’re going to have a primary scorer,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said of Cunningham and the defensive rotation lapses on those two late possessions.
“He had a terrific game. That’s the way he’s been playing, and he puts a lot of stress on you and everyone’s got to be tied together. Beasley had a hot hand, and you’ve got to be there on the catch.”
“Defensively we’ve got to be better,” Josh Hart said, pausing for a second before opting not to add any specifics. “Yeah, we’ve just got to be better.”
The loss was the fifth in the last seven games for the Knicks (26-15). Detroit (21-19) has won 10 of its last 12 games.
After being listed as questionable leading up to game time, Brunson showed no ill effects from his right shoulder issue. The issue on this night was the right thumb of Towns, who originally appeared to injure it while driving to the basket in the first quarter.
As Isaiah Stewart got a hand on the ball, Towns appeared to hit his knuckle on the rim. He grabbed it and held it in pain and had it taped to start the second quarter.
Asked if he got tests on it or had an idea of what the injury is, Towns said, “Ah, it is what it is. So that’s really it.”
Could it keep him out of a game?
“It is what it is,” he said.
Asked if it was tough to grip the ball, he said, “It is what it is, simple as that.”
Unlike Sunday’s performance against the Bucks, when Brunson and the Knicks were on fire from the start, this time they trailed 37-26 after the first quarter.
But with Cam Payne scoring eight of his 10 points in the second quarter, the Knicks outscored the Pistons 37-22.
Brunson scored 17 first-half points and got Cunningham in foul trouble with four in the half. Brunson and Towns totaled 33 points as the Knicks built a 63-59 halftime lead.
Cunningham didn’t commit a fifth foul and took over the game in the third quarter, shooting 7-for-10 from the floor and scoring 18 points in 8:35.
The Pistons again built a nine-point lead before the Knicks began to whittle away at the deficit. Detroit entered the fourth quarter leading 95-90.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
