On Sunday afternoon, point guard Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons had a chance to pick up one of their most remarkable wins of the season in a closely contested game against the Miami Heat. Cunningham had the ball in his hands with the shot clock turned off on what should have been the final possession with regulation, and the Pistons star watched the clock as it approached 10 seconds remaining.
And then, for some unknown reason, Cunningham chose to shoot rather than keep the ball for a final try at the buzzer, denying the Heat the opportunity to possess the ball. Instead, Miami collected the rebound, and Bam Adebayo provided instant retribution with a buzzer-beating three to win the game.
After the game, Cunningham broke down his thought process on the JR Smith-like blunder.
“Held it for a little bit, tried to run the clock a little bit,” Cunningham told Mike Curtis of the Detroit News on X, the social networking platform that was previously known as Twitter. “I liked my matchup, so I knew I was going to take it on. We had already determined that I would pull up the last two plays. I saw they were about to double me, so I tried to keep my matchup. I missed the shot. Flowed down. Bam achieved his whatever three of the year. Big time shot, but it was a sad loss. This one hurts.”
