Utah Jazz @ Detroit Pistons
Thursday, December 21, 2023 at 7:00 PM ET
Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, MI | Game ID: 22300374
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final
DET 32 26 30 23 111UTA 34 30 26 29 119
ESPN UpdateESPN Update
Pistons drop 25th straight to move within loss of tying NBA single-season record
DETROIT -- — Kelly Olynyk scored 25 points and the short-handed Utah Jazz beat Detroit 119-111 on Thursday night for the Pistons' 25th straight loss — one short of the NBA single season record.
The 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers share the record at 26. The 76ers hold the overall mark at 28, a skid that started in the 2014-15 season and carried over into 2015-16.
“I want to be careful with my words, because this one hurts more than most of them,” first-year coach Monty Williams said. “A team that played last night got (50) points off turnovers and rebounds. It is unbelievably hard to understand how we can get outworked in those categories.”
The Pistons fell to 2-26, with the crowd chanting “Sell the team! Sell the team!” at the end in a loud statement to owner Tom Gores and his Platinum Equity firm. Detroit will be back in action Saturday night in Brooklyn.
“We're not 2-26 bad — no way are we that bad,” said Cade Cunningham , who led Detroit with 28 points and 10 assists. “I think we can turn this around. We can play a much better brand of basketball.”
Utah played without four of its top seven scorers — Lauri Markkanen , Jordan Clarkson , Keyonte George and Talen Horton-Tucker — on the second night of a back-to-back after losing at Cleveland on Wednesday.
“That's a really, really good team win for us,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “That's a hard game to play — second night of a back-to-back on the road with a bunch of guys out.”
Collin Sexton added 19 points for the Jazz Utah, and Ochai Agbaji had 18. Jaden Ivey added 24 points for Detroit, and Marvin Bagley III had 22, but no one else had more than eight.
Utah led 90-88 going into the fourth quarter and took advantage of Detroit's poor shooting to increase make it 100-93 with 7:40 to play.
The Pistons missed their first six 3-point attempts of the fourth, but Bojan Bogdanovic hit one to make it 104-100 with 4:40 left. Olynyk's 3-pointer against his former team put the Jazz up seven and Sexton's tip-in made it 115-106 with 1:37 to play.
“Rebounding is something we've emphasized all season, and it is definitely part of our identity on the offensive side of the ball,” Hardy said after his team finished with 15 offensive rebounds.
Sexton added two free throws to make it an 11-point game.
The Pistons were 1 for 10 on 3s in the fourth qyarter.
“We had a chance to win it down the stretch, and we just weren't solid enough,” Cunningham said. “This is history no one wants to be a part of.”
Who is who
the initials in the Players column
DETAB A. Burks
AT A. Thompson
BB B. Bogdanović
BO Bogdanovic
CC C. Cunningham
IL I. Livers
IS I. Stewart
JI J. Ivey
JW J. Wiseman
MB M. Bagley III
MS M. Sasser
UTACS C. Sexton
JC J. Collins
KD K. Dunn
KO K. Olynyk
LS L. Samanic
OA O. Agbaji
SF S. Fontecchio
TH T. Hendricks
WK W. Kessler
DET/UTA the team itself, not a player
-- the feed named nobody
What
What happened
the codes in the Events column
M2 / M3 made 2 / made 3
X2 / X3 missed 2 / missed 3
FT / X1 free throw made / missed
AST assist
OR / DR offensive / defensive rebound
STL steal
BLK block
TO turnover
FL foul
OF offensive foul — ends the possession
VIOL violation
JUMP jump ball
TM timeout
IR instant replay
HE heave at the buzzer, filed to the team
Where
Where a shot came from
the middle field of M3.LW.25
RM at the rim inside 4 ft
RC right corner
RW right wing
SO straight on
LW left wing
LC left corner
M3.LW.25 made 3, left wing, 25 ft
X2.RM.01 missed 2, at the rim, 1 ft
When
When it happened
the Offset column
one number per event, in the Events order:
whole seconds from the start of the
possession to that event
Events FL X3.RC.23 OR M2.RM.01
Offset 0 18 22 24
the foul opens the possession at 0s;
the putback ends it at 24s, which is
the possession's own Dur