Pistons show 'fight,' but lose again, capping rare winless month - ESPN

NEW YORK — The Detroit Pistons became the first team in eight years to go winless for a full month of an NBA season Thursday night.

But despite dropping a 16th consecutive game, losing 118-112 to the New York Knicks here at Madison Square Garden, coach Monty Williams and his young Pistons team saw the performance — on the heels of a desultory home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers Wednesday night — as a step in the right direction.

«I saw the fight and resiliency that we can build on,» Williams said after his Pistons fell to an NBA-worst 2-17 on the season, and became the first team since the 2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers, who lost 16 straight games in November 2015, to go winless for a full calendar month. «That's a game that we can build on.

The Pistons are just the eighth team in NBA history to go 0-15 or worse in a calendar month, and the first since the 76ers in Nov. 2015.

»I'm not into moral victories. I don't know where that came from. Doesn't make sense. But that was something — that game, that output, that energy, production from our group — [that] is something that I'm proud of. That's the kind of competitive edge that we have to play with every single night."

Coming off a 26-point drubbing at the hands of the Lakers Wednesday, Detroit hung in with the Knicks (11-7) throughout this one, and even led in the fourth quarter before a long scoring drought saw the Knicks go on a run to put the game out of reach.

Some familiar issues befell Detroit, including being outscored by 9 points at the free throw line, as well as allowing New York to have the same margin in second-chance points, and committing 20 turnovers. Yet Cunningham's message to the team when it returned to the locker room, Williams said, was «We got our swag