Winners and losers from Magic's historic Game 6 disaster against Pistons

The Detroit Pistons completed the largest comeback in history in Game 6, crawling back down from 24 points to secure a 93-79 win to force Game 7. It was one of the worst single game collapses in postseason history.

Who were a few winners and losers?! Let's examine!

Winner: Pistons' resilience

To beat the best team in the East, you were going to have to knock them out.

Detroit trailed by 20-plus on very few instances this season. It was down 24 with 10:26 left in the third quarter. Though the Pistons slowly, but surely, chopped down the tree that was the Orlando Magic.

And it crashed down hard.

Orlando scored just 19 points in the second half with 23-straight misses, the most consecutively of a playoff game in the play-by-play era, according to ESPN's Jorge Sedano. Additionally, the 19 points were the fewest a team has scored in one half ever in the postseason.

The Magic just went 45 min of real time between made baskets (8:46 ET to 9:31 ET)

Magic: 23 consecutive missed FGA, the most consecutive missed shots by any team in a playoff game in the play-by-play era (since 1997-98).

Only 2 other teams missed 20+
•2001 Kings: 22 straight…
— Jorge Sedano (@Sedano) May 2, 2026

It's hard to get much worse than that. Somehow, the Magic did.

Loser: Whole Magic team

We'll get to individual players in a moment. But you can't score 19 points in a single half in any game, let alone a potential series-clinching playoff game. The Magic:

Missed 23 straight shots.
Went nearly 14 minutes without a made field goal.
Settled for way too many threes, shooting 2-of-18 from distance in the second half.
Blew a 24-point lead.
Had its three-best players shoot a combined 2-of-26 in the second half.

Unacceptable and embarrassing on every front.

Winner: Cade Cunningham

Once again, Cunningham was outstanding. He limited the careless turnovers in Game 4, finishing with 32 -- including 24 in the second half, outscoring the Magic (19) by himself -- on 10-of-23 shooting, 2-of-4 from 3-point range and 10-of-12 from the free-throw line. He also had 10 rebounds, three assists, four steals and one block.

The Pistons followed their leader. Once the floodgates opened, Cunningham controlled the game as well as he has anytime this series.

Loser: Paolo Banchero and Desmond Bane

The Magic's two stars crumbled. Numbers aside, both of their processes were bad; their shot selection was abhorrent. Too many early clock attempts that ended up being wasted possessions. And this disasterclass transpired after both had somewhat encouraging first halves.

The script was completely flipped in the second half. Both shrank like a frightened turtle (shoutout Seinfeld).

Winner: Those who are rooting for Game 7s

We now have two Game 7s in the East ... anyone see what happened in Toronto?!

RJ BARRETT HITS THE GO-AHEAD 3 IN OT TO WIN IT FOR THE RAPTORS AND FORCE GAME 7 🚨

WHAT A SHOT WITH THE SEASON ON THE LINE 😲 pic.twitter.com/FI6yKSWCaq
— NBA (@NBA) May 2, 2026

If a Magic player had shot that, it would have likely missed everything.

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