Sports

After Horrid Start to Playoffs, Jalen Duren Finally Plays the Hero for Pistons in Game 1 Win Over Cavaliers

By Liam McKeone Sports Illustrated

There was no player more harshly criticized than Jalen Duren in the first round of the 2026 playoffs.

Plenty of others earned critiques with their play, and others still helped send their teams home early by underperforming; it's going to be quite a long summer for Nikola Jokić in that regard. The young Pistons center is not alone in his struggles to begin the postseason and far from the only one to get an earful from the greater viewing masses. But even so-Duren was torn to shreds.

The 22-year-old made his playoff debut against the Magic in the opening round of this postseason and fell flat on his face in his face, and even that is a bit of a rosy view of what unfolded. Orlando cooked up a perfect scheme to shut off Duren's easy points and exposed his complete inability to score outside the structure of a Cade Cunningham assist. He was even worse defensively after making enormous progress on that end of the court this season; the fourth-year center was jumping at the slightest pump fake and found himself constantly out of position, dooming his team's overall defensive effort.

Duren finished the seven-game series averaging all of 10.6 points per night while shooting 52.8% from the field; he put up 19.6 points on 65.0% shooting during the regular season. His offensive collapse in tandem with the roster's shooting struggles at large meant he played a big role in allowing the Magic to shrink the floor. As a result, it's more than fair to say he also played a big role in the Pistons falling down 3–1. Duren certainly played better as Detroit came back to win the series but not so much better there was a notable difference out there.

His team advanced regardless and, in Game 1 of the next series against the Cavaliers on Tuesday night, Duren's struggles looked like they might carry over. The big man wasn't converting his open looks against Cleveland's tall frontcourt of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley while struggling to deter shots consistently at the rim. It felt like Duren was taking one step closer to confirming the dismal view of his game from the first round.

It didn't matter too much for three quarters as the Pistons took a big lead. But then the Cavs started coming back. Then they came back. Suddenly what once was a 16-point lead had been whittled to four in the early minutes of the fourth quarter. With all the momentum behind Cleveland it seemed Detroit was on the verge of blowing another winnable playoff game.

Enter Duren.

It was, finally, his turn to play the hero the way he did often over the course of Detroit's 60 wins. Duren started with a sweet block on what Cavaliers center Thomas Bryant surely thought was an easy bucket. A minute later Duren found Duncan Robinson wide-open off an offensive rebound and the sharpshooter splashed home a massive three. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff pulled him at that point and Duren was subbed back in with just over six minutes remaining with the lead only at five-winning time, in other words. This is where Duren failed in the Orlando series, but Bickerstaff stuck with his guy.

It paid off. After Cleveland tied the game at 93 with five minutes left, Duren turned the tide. He swatted a would-be go-ahead James Harden floater, grabbed the rebound and sprinted the floor to get an easy dunk off a Cunningham assist. He pulled down another board on the next possession and ran the floor, again, to throw down a second consecutive slam. Duren capped off the sequence by capitalizing on yet another good pass from his point guard to emphatically dunk once more.

Three straight slam dunks. A personal 6–0 run. Duren delivered with the game in the balance as the Pistons would go on to win, 111–101.

The final numbers were still not very pretty. The All-Star only made four of his 11 shot attempts to get to 11 points on the night. But he added 12 rebounds, four assists and two blocks. Most importantly the Pistons outscored the Cavaliers by 17 points in Duren's 35 minutes-a massive turnaround from the Magic series in which Detroit outscored Orlando by 22 points total in seven games with Duren on the floor.

Afterwards the big man stated his belief the Pistons just have to keep doing what they did in the regular season to win. He's included, and the fact that he played at that level tonight made all the difference.

"They've got a lot of great players, a lot of guys who can make shots," Duren said after Game 1. "It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be an easy series. But if we execute, do the dirty work, get all the 50-50 balls and just do what we've been doing all season to get to this point, I think we'll be in a good space."

This was the version of Duren the Pistons relied on all year long to dominate the paint on both ends. Tuesday night's clutch play doesn't erase his horrid start in Round 1, and he clearly can still hit another level-which the Pistons will need to see sooner rather than later if they want to make a serious run.

But it undoubtedly felt good to deliver after what happened against the Magic. The Pistons are up 1–0 over the Cavs and it couldn't have happened without Duren stepping up when his team needed him most.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as After Horrid Start to Playoffs, Jalen Duren Finally Plays the Hero for Pistons in Game 1 Win Over Cavaliers.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 8:07 PM.

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