Magic's Historic Collapse Paves Way For Pistons' 24-point Comeback To Force Game 7

The Orlando Magic came into Friday with a chance to pull off a historic upset over the No. 1-seeded Detroit Pistons in front of their home crowd.

Instead, they authored a historic second-half collapse, blowing a 24-point lead in a 93-79 loss to Detroit, which will now host Game 7 on Sunday.

But that’s not the half of it.

The Magic went completely ice-cold from the floor in the second half, missing 23 consecutive field-goal attempts and only scoring one bucket on 20 attempts in the fourth quarter. Orlando scored 19 points in the second half on 4-of-37 shooting, the fewest points of any half in NBA playoff history, according to ESPN, as Detroit completely turned the tables.

With the season on the line, Cade Cunningham came alive. The Pistons guard scored 19 second-half points to finish with 32 points and 10 rebounds.

The Magic were playing without Franz Wagner, who missed his second straight game with a calf strain. But that alone wasn’t enough to explain Orlando’s complete inability to hit a basket in the fourth quarter.

The teams kept it close in the first quarter, with strong defense from both sides. But in the second quarter, the Magic went on a huge scoring run to pull ahead by double digits and fire up the Orlando crowd. That lead only kept growing as the game headed toward halftime, with the Magic heading into the locker room up 22 points.

Orlando played well in the first half, but Detroit emerged from the locker room looking like a completely new team. And the same coul be said for the Magic.

Orlando’s scoring slowed down significantly in the third quarter, but their defense stayed strong, shutting down the Pistons’ comeback attempts — for part of the quarter, at least. But a 16-2 run by Detroit suddenly narrowed the lead heading into the fourth.

Early in the fourth quarter, Cunningham cut the deficit to five points. A few minutes later, a pair of free throws and a steal-and-score from Cunningham brought the Pistons back even at 72-72.

Meanwhile, the Magic couldn’t buy a bucket until Paolo Banchero, who shot 4-of-20 from the floor for 17 points, scored the Magic’s only field goal of the fourth quarter on a dunk with 2:24 remaining.

That gave the Pistons even more room to pile on, as they pushed the lead to double digits in the final minutes and absolutely ruined the party in Orlando. All in all, Detroit outscored the Magic 31-8 in the fourth quarter and 55-19 in the second half.

The Pistons’ comeback was the largest by a road team facing elimination in 40 years, per the NBA. Now as a result, we have a Game 7 in Detroit on Sunday.