Cunningham Scores 52 With No Turnovers as Pistons Outlast Wizards

Cade Cunningham scored a career-high 52 points and handed out 11 assists without a single turnover on Thursday night, and the Detroit Pistons beat the Washington Wizards 144-140 in double overtime at Capital One Arena. It's the first game with at least 50 points and 10 assists and no turnovers since the NBA began tracking turnovers in 1977-78.

The line behind the headline is clean. Cunningham shot 16-for-25 from the field, 3-for-5 from three and 17-for-18 at the line in 48 minutes, with five rebounds, a steal and a block. His previous career high was 46, set just over a year ago, also against Washington. The 52 points equal the fourth-highest total in Pistons history, and he's the ninth Detroit player to score 50 in a game.

Washington kept refusing the ending. Detroit led 121-118 with 1.8 seconds left in regulation after Cunningham's free throws, and Trae Young hit a 29-foot three with 1.1 seconds to go to force overtime. Kyshawn George's three had given the Wizards a 118-117 lead with 32.5 seconds left, and the lead changed hands 20 times across the night, with 13 ties.

The first overtime ran the same script at higher speed. Washington scored the first seven points, Cunningham pulled Detroit level at 130 with a three that gave him 47, and Duncan Robinson's foot-on-the-line jumper put the Pistons up 132-130 with nine seconds left. Rookie AJ Dybantsa, this year's No. 1 overall pick, tied it again with a pull-up at the free-throw line with under a second remaining.

The second overtime finally bent. Cunningham opened it with a three to make it 135-132, Anthony Davis, who had 30 points and 15 rebounds for Washington, fouled out, and Cunningham's baseline fadeaway with 25.3 seconds left stretched the lead to 142-138. Washington didn't get closer than the final four-point margin after that.

He wasn't carrying the box score alone. Ausar Thompson posted a triple-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, plus three steals and three blocks, and Daniss Jenkins added 21 points. Cunningham had help. He just also had the kind of night that makes the help a footnote: 22 points through three quarters, then 18 in the fourth and 30 in total after the third.

Detroit's coaching staff didn't hide from the other end of the floor. The Pistons came into the night allowing 104.6 points a game, the most any opponent had scored against them this season was 121, and Washington matched that 121 in regulation on the way to 140, shooting 49 percent with 33 assists and 62 points in the paint. J.B. Bickerstaff called his team's defense terrible afterward. The win counts the same either way, but it needed 52 points and two overtimes because the stops never came.

Detroit is 8-3, and it's won both games of this week's home-and-home with Washington, after a 122-112 win on Monday when Cunningham managed 17 points in foul trouble. The swing between those two nights is the story of his week. The Pistons go to Miami on Saturday, and they take with them a guard who just played 48 minutes, scored 52 and didn't give the ball away once.