Cade Cunningham scored a career-high 52 points in Washington on Thursday night, November 12, and did it without a single turnover. FINAL: Detroit Pistons 144, Washington Wizards 140 (2OT). The 25-year-old guard added 11 assists in 48 minutes at Capital One Arena, and the win needed every point he produced.
Cunningham Scores 52 Points With Zero Turnovers
The history is in the clean sheet. ESPN reported that Cunningham became the first NBA player with at least 50 points, 10 assists and no turnovers in a game since the league began tracking turnovers in 1977-78, according to OptaSTATS. The Associated Press report put the same mark in the same terms: the first player to do it since the turnover era began, on a night when the Pistons were pushed to a second overtime.
Join The iimiTV Letter
Enter your email and we will send you a confirmation link. Click it and your first edition lands on Friday.
The full line reads like a misprint. Cunningham shot 16 of 25 from the field, 3 of 5 from three-point range and 17 of 18 from the free-throw line, with five rebounds, one steal and one block to go with the 52 points and 11 assists. Thirty of the 52 came in the fourth quarter and the two overtimes, including 18 in the fourth, the most points by a Pistons player in a fourth quarter and overtime combined in the play-by-play era, which began in 1997-98. His previous career high was 46 points, set just over a year ago, also against Washington. “It was the best I’ve ever done it in my NBA career for sure,” Cunningham said.
Two Last-Second Shots Forced Two Overtimes
Washington would not stay down. Trae Young buried a three-pointer at the buzzer to end regulation and send the game to overtime, and after Detroit steadied itself, rookie AJ Dybantsa hit a midrange jumper with less than a second left to force a second extra period. Young finished with 37 points and 14 assists, and the Wizards had three 30-point scorers, Anthony Davis and Alex Sarr scoring 30 each, their first trio of 30-point scorers since Mike Davis, Earl Monroe and Gus Johnson did it for the Baltimore Bullets on November 18, 1969. Sarr was a perfect 10 of 10 from the field in regulation and finished 12 of 14.
Cunningham opened the second overtime with a three-pointer, and Davis fouled out to give Detroit the upper hand. With the game still a two-point contest in the final minute, Cunningham scored from the baseline to make it 142-138 with 25.3 seconds left, and the Pistons closed out the 144-140 win. Ausar Thompson backed him with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for his first career triple-double, the second Pistons first of the night. Washington has now lost six straight.
Where 52 Points Sits In Pistons History
Cunningham did not just set a personal best. His 52 equalled the fourth-highest scoring total in franchise history: Jerry Stackhouse scored 57 in 2001, Kelly Tripucka had 56 in 1983, Dave Bing had 54 in 1971 and George Yardley scored 52 in 1958. He is the first Pistons player ever with a 50-point, 10-assist game, and the third Pistons player with a 50-point double-double, joining Yardley, who did it twice in 1957-58, and Blake Griffin in 2018-19.
The wider company is just as small. Cunningham became only the fifth player with a 50-point double-double and zero turnovers in a game since 1977-78, joining Michael Jordan, who did it twice, Moses Malone, Carmelo Anthony and Giannis Antetokounmpo. None of the others put the assist version together first: the 50-point, 10-assist, zero-turnover game had never happened before Thursday night. The qualifier matters and it is worth stating plainly, because it is what makes the mark so hard to reach: the NBA did not track turnovers as an official statistic before the 1977-78 season, so the record covers the turnover era, not the league’s full history, and in 48 seasons of tracked turnovers nobody had done it.
Detroit improved to 8-3 with the win, 5-1 on the road, while Washington fell to 4-9. The Pistons needed a career night from their franchise guard and a first triple-double from Thompson to beat a Wizards team that kept answering with last-second shots, and Cunningham answered both of them. A 52-point night is rare on its own. A 52-point night with 11 assists and not one giveaway, in a game that went two overtimes, is the kind of line that makes you check whether it has ever happened before. It had not.
