Cavaliers Climb Past Pistons 125–94, Advance to Conference Finals With Knicks

The Cleveland Cavaliers are moving on to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. In less than 48 hours after Sunday’s 125–94 win over the Detroit Pistons, the Cavaliers will be in New York’s Madison Square Garden to take on the Knicks in Game 1 of the series.

From the opening jump ball in Sunday’s Game 7 semifinals at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, the Cavaliers dominated the hometown Pistons. Although Detroit ended the 2025–2026 regular season as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, it was outscored in each of the game’s four quarters. Cleveland’s offense was led by guard Donovan Mitchell with 26 points, plus eight assists, and pulling down six rebounds. Evan Mobley contributed 21 points and 12 rebounds. Mobley, the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year a season ago, also had two steals and two blocked shots in his 36 minutes of play, the most on his team. Center Jarrett Allen pumped in 23 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

Playing in a loud and hostile atmosphere on the road, the Cavaliers didn’t seem to allow outside distractions to get them off their game. They outscored Detroit 33–25 in the third period. At halftime, Cleveland mounted a dominating 64–47 lead. Throughout the playoffs for Cleveland, who advanced from the semifinals round by eliminating the Toronto Raptors in seven games, confidence among their players has shown no signs of wavering.

“Even last year, when we lost to Indiana, we had our goals set on getting to the Finals. We’re just one step closer,” Mitchell told ESPN.com after Sunday’s game. “But yeah, it’s been almost a decade of running into the same issue. So for sure, I personally, and as a team, we can breathe a little bit.”

Detroit was unable to stop Cavaliers’ Sam Merrill. Cleveland’s shooting guard came off the bench and nailed five of the eight 3-pointers he put up. His 23 points were 10 more than any individual Pistons player on the night. Daniss Jenkins led Detroit scorers with 17 points. Going from an NBA-worst 14–68 in 2023–24 to being the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference this season, has been quite a climb for Detroit. But losing Game 7, even after winning a seven-game semifinals series over the Orlando Magic, Sunday’s disappointment is tough to dismiss.

Detroit point guard and two-time NBA All-Star Cade Cunningham, who was held to 13 points and failed to connect on seven 3-point attempts in his 37 minutes of play, seemed at ease when speaking with The Athletic after Sunday’s loss.

“It was a great opportunity this season, to move forward and continue to experience new things we hadn’t been exposed to,” Cunningham said. “We fell short. We were right there, but we fell short. So I think that chip, that sting is going to sit for a while. We’ve got to work through it and continue to grow.”

While Cleveland’s bench proved offensively potent in dropping 37 points in Sunday’s victory, among the starters, James Harden’s anemic shooting was only able to pop for nine points in his 28 minutes on the floor. He also failed to connect on the six 3-point attempts taken and had two assists. Pistons starters were able to connect on only three 3-point attempts.

As the Pistons go into the offseason, their head coach won’t be hanging his head low for too long. In speaking to NBA.com after Sunday’s defeat, the coach is clearly proud of his team’s growth.

“This was not a disappointment,” said Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff. “It’s a loss—a tough loss. The Cavs just outplayed us tonight.”

The third round of the NBA playoffs for Cleveland resumes on Tuesday in New York. The tip-off at Madison Square Garden is at 8 p.m. EDT. Game 2 is also in New York and has an 8 p.m. EDT start time. Both games will be shown on ESPN. Games 3 (Saturday) and 4 (Monday) will be played in Cleveland’s Rocket Arena.

An interesting connection between the Knicks and Cavaliers is coach Mike Brown. New York’s first-year head coach was Cleveland’s bench boss for six seasons. In 2007, Brown led the Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference championship, but they were swept in the finals by the San Antonio Spurs.

The Western Conference finals series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio gets underway on Monday at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center at 8:30 p.m. EDT. Oklahoma City led all 30 NBA teams during the regular season with 64 wins. The game can be seen on NBC and Peacock.