The NBA has a light four-game slate on Tuesday night, headlined by an NBC national doubleheader. The opener, set for 8 p.m. ET, sends the unbeaten Detroit Pistons to Madison Square Garden to face the New York Knicks, who are winless through three games as defending champions.
It is the first of four regular-season meetings between the two Eastern Conference contenders. The Knicks have lost as many games in five days this season as they did during their entire playoff run last spring.
Detroit will be without center Jalen Duren, who signed a $200 million contract extension on the eve of the season after contentious negotiations. He is expected to miss at least two weeks with a right hamstring strain suffered in Friday's win over Miami. Duren had 22 points and nine rebounds in the opener against Boston, but played only 10 minutes against the Heat.
The Pistons still won in Philadelphia on Sunday, 106-93, in a wire-to-wire effort. They caught a break, though, as the 76ers were on the second night of a back-to-back and rested Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe. Paul Reed filled in with eight points, eight rebounds and three blocks in 26 minutes, and Detroit won the rebounding battle 54-37. Detroit is the only team in the East without a loss.
Two more Pistons guards are in doubt. Ausar Thompson, a starter who led the league in steals, sat Sunday with an ankle injury. Isaiah Joe, acquired in the offseason from Oklahoma City, left that game late in the first quarter with a hip contusion and did not return. The game also ends a three-game road trip for Detroit and is the first night of a back-to-back.
New York, meanwhile, is coming off a 111-102 home loss to an Orlando team missing star Paolo Banchero. The Knicks blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead, and Jalen Brunson struggled late for the second time in a week, finishing 12-for-28 from the field and 1-for-7 from three. Mikal Bridges is averaging 3.3 points per game while shooting 21.7% from the field, and Karl-Anthony Towns has been the main bright spot as he plays for a new contract.
The Knicks are the first defending champions to begin 0-3 since the 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks. A loss Tuesday would match the 1969-70 Boston Celtics as the only defending champions to start 0-4. "Everyone can say it's early in the season. We can use that as an excuse, but I think the one thing I see is when we get those runs and start to look like the team that we did in the past, we get comfortable," Brunson said after Sunday's defeat. "So we have to continue to put our foot on the gas and execute like we did last year. And we're not going to be the same as last year. That's just human nature."
There was also friction on the bench Sunday. Coach Mike Brown sat backup center Andre Drummond in the second quarter after Drummond jogged lazily back on defense, and James Wiseman took the backup minutes. Drummond was reportedly unhappy about it. He was signed in the offseason to replace the departed Mitchell Robinson.
History favors Detroit in this matchup. The Pistons won all three regular-season meetings with New York last season by double digits, with Duren missing each one because of injury or suspension. Cade Cunningham averaged 27.3 points and 11.0 assists in those games, and in one of them became the first player in franchise history to score at least 40 points with 10 assists at Madison Square Garden. Only LeBron James and Allen Iverson had done so before him in the league. Brunson averaged 23.3 points for New York in the series.
