Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons thumped the Atlanta Hawks 142-115 on Friday to extend their lead on top of the NBA Eastern Conference.
Shrugging off disappointment at missing the ongoing NBA Cup’s knockout rounds, dominant Detroit racked up their biggest points total and winning margin of the season to move to 20-5.
The rout came after a tight first quarter and despite heroics from Atlanta forward Jalen Johnson, who made Hawks franchise history with his third consecutive triple-double.
Photo: AP
Detroit spread the points around, with star point guard Cunningham among eight Pistons players to hit double figures, but no player reaching 20.
More than half of the Pistons’ tally came from the bench, led by Isaiah Stewart’s 17.
After a first quarter in which the lead changed 13 times, Detroit surged emphatically ahead.
The Hawks, playing without injured star guard Trae Young since October, never regained the advantage.
Atlanta’s Johnson managed 19 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds to extend a remarkable hot streak, even as his team have lost four of their past five games.
It was Johnson’s fifth triple-double of the season — a Hawks record for a single campaign — and the seventh of his career, tying the franchise record.
The victory in Detroit was the Pistons’ third win from three clashes against the Hawks this season.
Both teams had not played in nearly a week due to their absence from the knockout stages of the NBA Cup, which holds its semi-finals in Las Vegas this weekend.
Elsewhere in Friday’s regular-season games, the Chicago Bulls snapped their seven-game losing streak, beating the Charlotte Hornets 129-126.
Donovan Mitchell scored 24 of his whopping 48 points in the fourth quarter as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Wizards 130-126.
In San Francisco, Stephen Curry returned from injury to score 39 points, but it was not enough to stop the Golden State Warriors from falling to a 127-120 loss against the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves.
Julius Randle led the scoring for Minnesota with 27 points, with Rudy Gobert adding 24 points and Donte DiVincenzo 21.
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