NEW YORK — Statements are made at Madison Square Garden — both for teams and individual players on arguably the game’s biggest stage.
The Detroit Pistons made yet another declaration, sweeping the New York Knicks in the season series with a decisive 126-111 win with two key players missing due to suspension.
And individually, Cade Cunningham made his case to be the league’s Most Valuable Player, with 42 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds.
Cunningham told ESPN in the preseason that the award wasn’t directly a goal, but that it would come as a by-product of team success.
“It comes from doing the things I said, what I needed to do to be in that conversation,” Cunningham told ESPN Thursday night. “Now that we’re getting closer, there’s more [talk] like ‘What is your case? You should speak on it.’ I don’t really care to speak on it. I want the people that vote on it to be smart enough to look at the game for themselves.”
He’s no longer running from the possibility.
“I think I am [MVP],” Cunningham told ESPN. “And if you don’t agree with me, that’s your opinion.”
Thursday night’s game was as big of a statement as he could make, given the circumstances. The Pistons were without their two best big men, Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart, due to suspension from their altercation in Charlotte before the All-Star break.
And the Knicks, having been beaten soundly twice in Detroit the past few weeks, were looking to exact a measure of regular-season revenge against the team they beat in last year’s playoffs.
The exact opposite happened.
The Pistons held the Knicks, one of the league’s most prolific 3-point shooting teams, to just eight of 35 from distance, including a stretch where the Knicks missed 15 straight in the first half.
“This isn’t an us versus the Knicks thing,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said of his team’s approach to beating the Knicks this season. “The majority of our games, we’ve played the same way, the same temperament, the same edge, defended the same. This is just basketball for us, nothing to do with the opponent.”
And Cunningham had his way with every defender the Knicks threw at him — whether it was OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges or late in the game, new addition Jeremy Sochan. Cunningham was 5-of-11 from 3-point range, and defensively, added two blocks.
“I don’t think you pick an MVP based off, you know, just one game or one statement,” Bickerstaff said. “He’s been this way for the entire season. He’s dominated both ends of the floor and impacted winning in a major way.”
The Pistons own the NBA’s best record (41-13), having recently overtaken the top spot from the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. They’ve stretched their lead in the conference to six games over the Boston Celtics and their 19-7 road mark is one win short of the Thunder.
Cunningham seemed to relish playing at Madison Square Garden. In last season’s playoffs, he averaged 26 points, 7.6 assists and 8.6 rebounds in the three games in New York, leading the Pistons to both of their wins in the series.
In addition to being 3-0 against the Knicks, Detroit is 3-1 against second-place Boston and 1-1 against fourth-place Cleveland.
“Because of the playoffs and all that, people want to make a bigger deal of this than what it is,” Bickerstaff said. “We believe in our depth. We’ve won a ton of games this season, not at full strength.”
As long as the Pistons have Cunningham, they seem to believe in their chances. Since the media began voting for the award in 1980, the highest a Piston finished was Grant Hill in 1997, when he trailed Michael Jordan and Karl Malone.
Isiah Thomas finished fifth in 1984.
It seems Cunningham could be poised to eclipse both.
“He’s a winner, man. He really is. Attitude, leadership, every day, the guy is special,” veteran forward Tobias Harris said. “I think more than anything, he wants championships and that’s a difference. There’s guys who want to win MVP and guys who want to win championships.”
Harris said it hasn’t been a prevailing conversation in the locker room this year, that guys are just starting to notice how high Cunningham is in consideration.
Cunningham is averaging 25.3 points (14th in the NBA), 9.6 assists (second) and 5.8 rebounds.
“To sweep a team as good as them, they play high-level basketball,” Cunningham said. “To beat them, we’re trying to win tiebreaker and stuff, that means something. Just competing against the Eastern teams, beating a good team, means a lot.”
When asked if the Pistons made some definitive statement, Cunningham demurred a bit.
“What is it? I mean we’re the best team in the East, I don’t know what statement,” Cunningham said. “The statement is coming to play every night, and we’re going to compete until you lay down for us.”
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