The Detroit Pistons are dealing with several injuries to their young core at the moment
While the Detroit Pistons have been on the right side of the injury report for much of the regular season, the squad’s recent 15-point loss to the San Antonio Spurs brought some uneasiness to the Motor City.
The Pistons have a 6 pm contest tonight against the Brooklyn Nets on the docket, but Detroit now has a trio of injury concerns to deal with since Ausar Thompson, Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren are a little banged up after a physical matchup with the Spurs.
Just two minutes into the first quarter of the San Antonio game, Pistons forward Ausar Thompson jammed his right ankle while cutting to the hoop for a bucket and immediately pulled up in transition. Thompson came up lame on his right leg and hopped off to the side for medical attention and eventually hobbled back to the Detroit locker room under his own power. Unfortunately for the Pistons, Thompson has already been ruled out ahead of tonight’s game.
After the Pistons 121-106 loss to the Spurs, big man Isaiah Stewart mentioned how impactful Thompson’s absence was for Detroit, and they’ll be in a similar boat tonight without the dynamic two-way swingman who's been even more assertive as a ball handler lately.
As for Cunningham, the All-Star point guard is currently dealing with a left quad contusion, and he’s officially listed as questionable to play versus the Nets. Now, Cunningham dealt with a little more than his normal workload against the Spurs with 39 minutes, four more than his season average, and San Antonio was both aggressive and physical with their defense all game long. So, Cunningham is a bit worse for wear, but the Motown floor general has a chance to suit up for the Pistons later tonight despite his ailment.
The most surprising name on the Detroit injury report, however, belonged to Duren. While Cunningham grinded out a nearly 40-minute performance against a physically draining Spurs defense, Duren hardly factored into the contest since he fell deep into foul trouble early in the first half and only logged 12 minutes in the entire contest. But despite JD’s shorter outing, the All-Star center experienced some lower back spasms recently that caught the attention of the Detroit training staff, though the big man currently sports a probable designation to play tonight against the Nets.
Coincidentally, Pistons forward Ron Holland II was forced to leave Detroit’s cross-conference tilt against the Spurs due to blurred vision after contact with Victor Wembanyama, but the second-year slasher should be ready to go versus Brooklyn.
Since the Pistons are on the runway to the postseason at this stage, Detroit will look to strike the right balance of keeping everyone in rhythm while safeguarding against injuries to keep the squad humming as the playoffs approach. The Pistons have had relatively fortunate luck with injuries up to this point, so do not be surprised if Detroit exercises some caution with their young core over the next five weeks in order to ensure that their injury luck stays intact.
For more information on the latest Detroit Pistons team or player news, follow @EricJRutter on X for continued basketball coverage. Also be sure to look up Roundtable - Michigan Men Media on Facebook for continued social media coverage of all the sporting teams in the Mitten.