making the conference finals for the first time<\/a> in his career. <\/p>\n\u201cEven last year. when we lost to Indiana, we had our goals set on getting to the (NBA) Finals. We\u2019re just one step closer. It\u2019s been almost a decade of running into the same issue. … As a team, we can breathe a little bit, but the same token, we can only breathe for about 12 hours, and then get right back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniss Jenkins scored 17 points, and Cade Cunningham and Duncan Robinson each finished with 13 for the Pistons, who fell one win shy of their first conference finals appearance since 2008 after forcing the deciding game with a Game 6 victory Friday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat game sucked,\u201d said Cunningham, who was held 16 points under his playoff average. \u201cBeing back home, wanted to get this win in front of our fans. It reminded me of last year, losing on home court. It\u2019s not a great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cavs dictated the pace from the opening tip and never allowed the Pistons to gain traction, then blew open a convincing Game 7 performance when Mitchell scored 15 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Detroit was outscored in the paint 58-34 and made only 35.3% of its field goal attempts, compared to Cleveland\u2019s 50.6%<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we play with force, it\u2019s really a key. Like, force on both ends with our talent, we\u2019re really hard to beat,\u201d Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said. \u201cThe question we got to answer, we talked about it a lot, is we can\u2019t have force letdowns like Game 6, where we were not the forceful team. But tonight we were, that was a whole difference, our force on both ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cleveland capitalized on cold shooting by the Pistons in the opening quarter, turning missed shots into transition baskets while building an early advantage. The Cavs led 31-22 going to the second, and after Detroit had the first two baskets, Cleveland quickly seized control with a 24-9 run. The Pistons\u2019 offensive struggles only deepened and the Cavs continued to shoot efficiently as they built a commanding 64-47 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
The Cavs kept rolling in the second half and led by as much as 35 points. The closest the Pistons were able to get in the half was within 17 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that start was monumental, the start that they knew that we were here, and that we were going to give them some problems,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cThe beginning of the game, that was key, and then coming out of halftime was the same message: \u2018We got to win this first five minutes to put them on their on their heels.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT (AP) \u2014 Donovan Mitchell scored 26 points, Jarrett Allen and Sam Merrill each added 23 and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14376,7011,7013,18344,18381,18378,8,18377,18379,3038,922,920,2733,3044,10601,1256,7006,9,2677,1456,18380,1199,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-30197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-cade-cunningham","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-donovan-mitchell","12":"tag-duncan-robinson","13":"tag-evan-mobley","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-jarrett-allen","16":"tag-ken-atkinson","17":"tag-lebron-james","18":"tag-mi-state-wire","19":"tag-michigan","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-nba-basketball","22":"tag-nba-playoffs","23":"tag-new-york","24":"tag-new-york-knicks","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-oh-state-wire","27":"tag-ohio","28":"tag-sam-merrill","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116595909297193918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}