Cade Cunningham adds to MVP 'case' with 42-point game vs. Knicks - ESPN

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 byproduct 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 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 last 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.

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