All-Star Cade Cunningham is among the many stars to watch when the Cavs and Pistons square off.
In the beginning, there was Dave Bing vs. Bingo Smith. A few years later, Bob Lanier was banging in the low post against Jim Chones, Tyrannosaurus meets Brontosaurus in the NBA’s Jurassic era.
Fast-forward a decade or so and it was Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars matched up on Mark Price and Ron Harper, with Brad Daugherty and Hot Rod Williams in bruising combat with Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn. Hall of Famers Lenny Wilkens and Chuck Daly on the sidelines gave a classy, coiffed veneer to what really was bare-knuckle basketball.
Twenty-years ago, young LeBron James was taking on that championship ensemble from Detroit. Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Ben Wallace & Co. were the first foes who had James looking around for more help, before Boston’s deeper numbers sent him packing for South Beach.
And now, we’re in the midst of a true renewal of the Cleveland Cavaliers-Detroit Pistons 55-year-old rivalry.
When the teams meet for the third time this season, Friday in prime time at Little Caesars Arena (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), they’ll do so as legitimate contenders in the Eastern Conference. Each has designs on a Finals berth that seems attainable out of the wide-open East, with a likelihood that one will have to go through the other for four to seven games before the end of May.
From their current positions – Detroit leads the conference at 43-14, Cleveland is fourth at 37-23 – a possible showdown would come in the Eastern Conference semifinals. A move up by the Cavaliers could nudge it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Either way, fans and viewers win.
Fundamentally, Pistons-Cavs should be an NBA hate connection on par with Celtics-Lakers, Knicks-Sixers or Bulls-Bucks. All of those rivalries have essential ingredients, some mix of proximity, history, and contempt-filled familiarity to drag decades of grudges and bad blood into each fresh meeting.
The odd truth about this one is that it’s been more episodic than constant. The reason? At most points in their shared 56 years of existence, only one or the other could be taken seriously as a threat:
Only 13 times since Cleveland entered the league via expansion in 1970 have both the Pistons and the Cavaliers finished better than .500 in the regular season.
This would be the 14th. That leaves 42 years in which one or the other or both were relegated to the NBA’s undercard, including 22 of 29 since 1997. The last time both Detroit and Cleveland were formidable enough to each reach 50 victories, a pace at which they’re both winning this season? Back in 2007.
It just so happens that spring provided the pinnacle of this on-again, off-again rivalry. The Pistons were in the thick of their last dominant run, reaching the East finals six consecutive times and the postseason in 10 of 11 years. The Cavaliers were ascending with James, role players and mismatched parts who got the franchise that deep in the postseason only twice before.
In a grinding series played almost entirely below 100 points, winners and losers, Game 5 proved pivotal not just in the moment but to both teams’ futures. James, then 22, scored Cleveland’s final 25 points and 29 of its last 30 for a 109-107 victory in double overtime. The Cavs eliminated the Pistons two nights later to reach their first of five Finals (four after James returned from Miami from 2014-18). The Pistons haven’t gotten out of the East since, having been bumped from the first round in four of their five playoff appearances since 2007-08 (they made one last East Finals in 2007-08).
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Head-to-head clashes for supremacy have been hard to come by. The teams have met just four times in the postseason – 2006, ’07, ’09 and ’16 – despite qualifying a combined 53 times. The Cavaliers have dominated, winning three of the four series and 15 of the 21 playoff games. The regular season record favors the Pistons, 134-109, but it has drawn closer with Cleveland winning 13 of the past 15 since 2022.
Perhaps the most significant of the in-season meetings occurred on Feb. 28, 1989. Price, Cleveland’s four-time All-Star point guard, came through a screen and took an elbow to the head from Mahorn. He fell lights-out, suffered a concussion and came back as a 46% shooter the rest of the season, a drop from his 55% accuracy before the blow. The Cavs won that game to reach 42-12 but went 15-13 the rest of the way, Detroit leaning into its “Bad Boys” identity on the way to back-to-back NBA titles that spring and in 1990.
Other than that run in the late 1980s and ‘90s and the metaphorical baton handoff in ’07, the time capsule is kind of thin. For all the proper ingredients – Rust Belt locations, passionate fan following, supporting bile generated by NFL (Browns-Lions), MLB (Guardians-Tigers) and NCAA (Michigan-Ohio State) competition – the Cavaliers-Pistons feud mostly has been sporadic. There’s a video online that purports to show “some unforgettable moments in the rich rivalry” between the teams – and it is 60 seconds long.
What we’ve got now, however, offers hope for the present and the near future. Cleveland came out of its second post-James setback in 2021-22, drafting forward Evan Mobley with the third overall pick before that season and trading for guard Donovan Mitchell after it.
The Cavs took playoff steps in 2023 and ’24 and were a 64-18 juggernaut last season before stalling out again, to injuries and the Indiana Pacers, in the East semis. Early this month, president of basketball operations Koby Altman swung hard, acquiring veteran guard James Harden from the Clippers in an attempt to turn the season. Harden has averaged 18.9 points and eight rebounds per game while hitting 49% on 3-pointers for Cleveland, which went 7-1 in games he’s played.
The Pistons defeated the Cavs in their last matchup in early January.
Detroit did its part to renew the rivalry last season, improving from 14-68 in 2023-24 to 44-38 with new coach J.B. Bickerstaff – fired by the Cavs after 2024’s playoff fizzle – tapping into the young Pistons’ potential. That deep roster, led by Kia MVP candidate Cade Cunningham and tough center Jalen Duren, a newly minted All-Star. Bickerstaff is among the favorites for Coach of the Year, an award won last spring by his replacement, Kenny Atkinson, which adds a little sizzle to these clashes.
There are other crossover connections: Pistons president Trajan Langdon previously worked as a Cavs executive and had played for the team. Bickerstaff’s assistants Luke Walton and Sidney Lowe were on his Cleveland staff, too. Detroit’s Caris LeVert logged three seasons with the Cavs, Cleveland guard Dennis Schröder opened last season in Detroit, Harden and the Pistons’ Tobias Harris were teammates in Philadelphia and so on.
This meeting might lack some of the star power, with Mitchell out with a groin injury and Harden questionable due to a fracture in his right thumb. The Pistons still are without enforcer Isaiah Stewart for what will be the sixth of his seven-game suspension. But their recent success makes it a must-see battle – Cleveland’s .741 (20-7) and Detroit’s .731 (19-7) are the league’s top winning percentages since Dec. 28. The Cavs rank fourth in offensive efficiency, while the Pistons are second at the other end.
Having split two games already (each winning on the other’s floor), they’ll play on Tuesday again. And then, if we’re fortunate to get it, seven more times in May.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
