Cade Cunningham and Paolo Banchero each score 45 as Pistons force Game 6

Cade Cunningham and Paolo Banchero turned Game 5 into a referendum on the NBA’s next wave of stars, trading 45-point performances in Detroit’s 116-109 victory over Orlando at Little Caesars Arena. Cunningham’s franchise playoff record and Banchero’s matching outburst gave the first-round series a defining night, one that ended with the Pistons forcing Game 6 and the Magic still holding a 3-2 lead.

Detroit needed every bit of Cunningham’s poise. The Pistons entered as the East’s No. 1 seed at 60-22, but they had been backed into a corner after Orlando won Game 4, 94-88, on April 27 to move within one win of the series. Cunningham answered by controlling the late stages, including a step-back, fadeaway jumper with 32 seconds left that helped seal the win and preserve Detroit’s season. His 45 points broke the Pistons’ single-game playoff mark, passing Dave Bing’s 44-point game from 1968.

Banchero made the same kind of claim on the other side. The Orlando forward, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, matched Cunningham point for point and finished one shy of the Magic’s postseason record. In a series shaped by the league’s future as much as its present, the duel underscored how much responsibility both players already carry: shot creation, late-clock decisions and the burden of lifting young rosters through the postseason. Banchero kept Orlando in position to finish the job, even as Cunningham repeatedly answered with bigger shots in the final minutes.

The game’s significance reached beyond one night in Detroit. NBA.com linked the matchup to Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins in Game 7 of the 1988 Eastern Conference semifinals, one of the classic one-on-one playoff battles. TheScore noted that it was only the second time in NBA playoff history that two opponents had each scored at least 45 points in the same postseason game. Cunningham’s fifth three-pointer late in the third quarter helped Detroit carry an 89-79 lead into the fourth, and the Pistons absorbed Orlando’s push long enough for his closing jumper to matter.

For Detroit, the result kept alive a season that had started with top-seed expectations and was one loss from collapse. For Orlando, it confirmed that Banchero can meet the league’s biggest stage with the same force as the best young scorer on the floor. Together, Cunningham and Banchero showed how the NBA’s next tier of stars is taking shape, not in a breakout regular-season showcase, but in the pressure of a playoff game that demanded every answer they had.