Cade Cunningham unmoved by recent slump claiming Pistons have been in worse spots

It was evident after Sunday’s subpar showing against the Los Angeles Clippers that the Detroit Pistons’ recent form could be called into question.

The Pistons trailed from opening tip to final buzzer and were never at the races, allowing the Clippers to score a deserved 112-99 victory, handing Detroit its second straight loss.

However, regarding Detroit’s recent dip, Cade Cunningham isn’t jumping to any conclusions and has even compared his team’s past record to its current one, suggesting they aren't concerned right now.

“We’ve been at the bottom of the league before,” Cunningham recounted. “We know what it feels like to lose game after game. We’re not going to lose our competitiveness, and we’re not going to lose our spirit over two games.

“It’s a long season, obviously, there’s a lot to learn from, we’re not happy with those two games, two games we should have won. But we’ll keep on going out there and fighting. At the end of the day, we believe in ourselves.”

Cade: “We’ve been at the bottom of the league before. We know what it feels like to lose game after game. We’re not going to lose our competitiveness and we’re not going to lose our spirit over two games.” pic.twitter.com/rZsQAyUYDw
— Omari Sankofa II (@omarisankofa) December 29, 2025

The Pistons stay in Los Angeles to play the Lakers next on Tuesday. A game that Cunningham says his team are ready for and will be keen to bounce back, having lost a second straight game for the second time this season.

Cunningham was a slow burner against the Clippers. Held scoreless in the first half and plagued with foul trouble, he would eventually finish with a team-high 27 points.

“The urgency was definitely different; we wanted to cut that lead down,” Cunningham explained. “I was scoreless, that’s something that my team relies on me to bring, scoring.”

But one player who was scoring was the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard. He posted a career-high 55 points, along with 11 rebounds and five steals, on a night where he scorched the Pistons.

Leonard went a solid 17-for-26 from the field, with five of those coming from beyond the arc, and went 16-for-17 from the free throw line. He was particularly devastating in the third quarter, scoring 26 points.

"We allowed him to get into a rhythm," Cunningham said. "He is the type of player that, once you allow him to get into his spots and the looks that he wants, we just took too long to try and get the ball out of his hands, and he just continued to go. That was on us."

Despite the loss, the Pistons still face the Lakers atop the Eastern Conference, but they will want to bounce back at the tail end of their road trip.