Pistons stun ice-cold Magic with furious 2nd-half rally, force Game 7 - ESPN

ORLANDO, Fla. — Cade Cunningham scored 32 points, and the top-seeded Detroit Pistons pulled off an incredible rally Friday night, erasing a 24-point deficit and beating the Orlando Magic 93-79 to force a Game 7 in their Eastern Conference first-round series.

Detroit trailed by 22 at the half, and Orlando's lead went to 62-38 early in the third quarter. The Magic looked absolutely poised to become the seventh No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed in the first round.

And then, everything went wrong for Orlando. Everything.

«Detroit grit,» Cunningham said. «That's what we've been talking about all year.»

The Magic became the first team since 1997-98, when play-by-play began getting tracked digitally, to lose at home after leading by at least 24 points with a chance to win a series.

That number, and many others, were just baffling. The Magic missed 23 consecutive shots from the field, Detroit went on a 35-5 run, and just like that, the story of the game — and quite possibly the series — changed wildly.

The Magic shot 11% (4 of 37) from the field in the second half, the worst field goal percentage by any team in a regular-season or playoff half in the play-by-play era, according to ESPN Research.

The Pistons' extraordinary second-half rally against Orlando is among the largest halftime deficits overcome to win in NBA postseason history, joining the following:

«We took each possession at a time, both offensively and defensively, and tried our best to execute on every single possession,» Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. «Every screening action, every rebound, all the small things. We went out and focused on that. And we put ourselves in position to win.»

Tobias Harris scored 22 points for Detroit, which will host Game 7 on