Chapter 1: What recent successes have the Pistons achieved without Cade Cunningham?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for April 3rd, 2026. I'm Dave DuFour here with Espera Henney. Coming up, the Pistons somehow keep winning, the Hornets clinch a 500 record, and Andrew Swaggs here to talk about the Thunder demolishing the Lakers. Good morning, everybody. What is up? It's kind of a good game last night, man.
Yeah, everybody was so excited to see the new look contending Los Angeles Lakers go up against the Oklahoma City Thunder and to add insult to absolute injury. It was a tough one to be a Lakers fan, no doubt. Yeah.
Well, insult being a 40-plus point loss. Injury. Meaning Luka Doncic hurt his hamstring and had to leave the game. Obviously, you know, the game was out of hand when he had to leave. But this now puts him at risk of not making the 65-game threshold. Mm-hmm. or postseason awards, my least favorite thing to talk about. It is honestly sucking any of the fun out of it.
Victor Wiminyama didn't play last night, and now I have to go and do the math to see, okay, has he played enough games? How many games does he have? He left two games early.
Chapter 2: How did the Hornets secure their 41st win of the season?
Yeah. but apparently you get a couple of those. I'm sorry.
It's just not, that's not Dave. A few months ago. I don't remember what game it was, but there was, it became a free throw battle at the end of the game and you called it paperwork. Yeah. And it feels like the end of the regular season. Now,
is paperwork because of the 65 game rule you know you have to focus on how many games has a guy played except yeah they sent microsoft teams to space right they were having outlook issues on the artemis 2 which shout out to the artemis yeah i'm excited to see these moon photos absolutely but I think that you could just go ahead and leave that in space. I'm out on paperwork. It's sports, man.
Like, yeah, we're going to have I'm just going to we're going to give out the real awards when we do ours. We're not going to maybe we're not going to worry about the 65 game thing. And I bet it's not a real issue for us around here because, you know, we'll pick the real MVP anyway. Look, we got a little bit of news from last night. The Pistons had a big matchup against the Timberwolves.
Anthony Edwards was kind of a late scratch. He's now not going to qualify for postseason awards.
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Chapter 3: What happened in the Thunder vs. Lakers game?
Who's Anthony Edwards anyway? He's no one important. Yeah, so he was out last night. No Jaden McDaniels for the Timberwolves, so they were shorthanded. Obviously, the Pistons shorthanded on the road. No Kate Cunningham. But, man, look, they found money with Dennis Jenkins.
And between him and the way that Asar Thompson drives his team on both ends, man, they have a lot more juice than I think I anticipated by the time we got to now. And we may not have known this without Cade going down, you know, what sort of resiliency they had. They were so reliant on him to create so much. But, man, I've been really impressed with them in this stretch.
Yeah. Yeah, some of the maybe not even skepticism. Skepticism is a hard word, but some of the questions I had going into the playoffs for them have quelled since Cade Cunningham has been hurt because I feel like I trust this team now to figure it out when Cade is not playing. And that just means the minutes when Cade is off of the floor, which to your point includes Dennis Jenkins.
It includes a Sar Thompson and his defense. It's the energy of a guy like Ron Holland. I think for the most part, Kevin Herter has jumped in and kind of been what they needed in terms of another floor spacer. But when you have Dennis Jenkins, and I had that hot take a couple of days ago about how this guy could potentially be like a Jalen Brunson type.
Chapter 4: How is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander performing in the MVP race?
He does facilitate something similar for this Pistons team where it's like they rely on him as a creator. They rely on him as a pick and roll initiator. He can get to his own shot. He can create shots for others. And so he can act as Cade Cunningham for certain points. portions of the game.
And that's all important for Jalen Duren, who needs to be set up, and Asar Thompson, who needs to be set up, and Tobias Harris, who needs to get those post-entry passes. And so, yeah, you saw it tonight on display against an injured Timberwolves team, but the Pistons just continue to take care of business. And it goes back to what we were saying. It's like
they organizationally know what they're going to be night in night out. And that's a great sign for not only this season, but, you know, moving forward for this team to continue being a contender.
Yeah. And the thing about Dennis playing with Cade, if he comes, if he's able to come back for the playoffs is now you've got a guy who can run a pick and roll on the other side. He can't, Catch and shoot. He can shoot off the dribble. He can get to the basket. And this was a guy that they have been missing, in my opinion. You know, they just couldn't figure out that role.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of Luka Doncic's hamstring injury?
I do think, though, the the Assar Thompson stuff, he's been fantastic. Absolutely. But very specifically, you cannot play him. And have another non shooter out there at the same time. I mean, Jalen Duren doesn't count because he does space the floor like just in different ways. But there were stretches.
There were stretches where he was out there with Javante Green and the Timberwolves basically were like, OK, well, Dennis Jenkins isn't touching the ball. Duncan Robinson is not going to shoot. And every single time during gets the ball, we're doubling because we're not worried about these guys on the outside. But, you know, again, Kate comes back.
Javante Green probably isn't in the playoff rotation. I don't really think that's a huge concern, but it was something that I did notice last night.
Can I just mention a little side note for the Timberwolves here? In the time where McDaniels has been hurt and Ant has been hurt, they've let Io DeSumo just run wild, and it's been awesome to watch. The way that he sets the tone pace-wise for this Timberwolves team is something that I haven't seen from them ever in the playoffs. Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, and Edwards era.
Like they've never been forced to play this fast. And I actually think that'll be good for them in the playoffs. It's just like another change up guard to jump in there. We've talked about how he replicates some of the things they needed from Nikhil Alexander Walker that they're missing.
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Chapter 6: Why are the Lakers facing playoff concerns?
But he also adds a different element, which is just speed, like breakneck speed. And he's very excited. I'm very excited to see the Timberwolves in a playoff setting, truthfully, because he adds that next element that they've been missing.
Our Hornets were really proud of our Hornets. They clinched a 500 record when their 41st game against the Suns last night. That's right. Blew them out. One by 20. They were actually down early and had a nice run heading into halftime, took the lead. The Hornets... Look, they just continue to surprise me against good teams like the Suns are a pretty good team. Borderline playoff team.
I actually think there's a good chance they're the sixth seed had they not lost Booker for so much and for Dylan Brooks for so long. A couple of things happen in this game. Colin Gillespie sets the Suns single season made three pointer record, which come on. That doesn't feel right. OK, but it just doesn't feel right. It is very impressive for this guy.
He's one of the greatest shooters of all time. And he just laughed.
Chapter 7: What strategies are the Thunder using to dominate opponents?
And I think about Dan, Dan Marley, man. I mean, you know, he played there for so long. So anyway, congratulations to him. As weird as that, as that weird as that feels. And then for the Hornets, Conn Knipple as a rookie. Broke the record for the Hornets for most made threes of the season. He passed Kemba Walker. Yeah, this was a fun game until the Hornets just were too much.
Just decided we are tired. They could just shoot. And this is why I think, you know, I worry about the Pistons if they wind up drawing the Hornets because the Hornets' ability to shoot is
and rebound you know they're they're up there with detroit like they can really hit the glass very hard yeah um i think that there's you say detroit i'm i'm worried about any team that's going to play the hornets in the play-in like i'm looking at the raptors i'm looking at the sixers i'm looking at the hawks and if one of those teams falls out to seven and has to play the hornets Bad news.
Very, very bad news. We've got live stuff here with Andrew Schleck. Andrew, do you have any takes on? On Conn Knipple? Andrew Schleck joining the show. Any takes on Colin Gillespie breaking the Suns' single-season made three-pointer record or Conn Knipple doing it for the Hornets?
I would say both.
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Chapter 8: How does the 65-game threshold affect MVP discussions?
Good. I agree. I'm with you.
Definitely.
It's not prepared to join this show right now.
Perfect. Everybody hang out for a second. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with Andrew Schleck to talk about Lakers thunder. As you heard, heading into the break, our man Andrew Schlecht is here. He was at Thunder Lakers last night. Trying to do a little live TV. For the drubbing. A little television. What kind of beatdown do we even say this was?
Because the game was over basically in five minutes. Mollywop? Yeah, it was worse than that maybe.
Yeah, I mean, after the first quarter, it was 44-21. And we all watch a lot of NBA games. We've seen games like this. And usually what happens is these teams jump out to these big leads, and the other team just chip, chip, chips away at it. And somehow we're at a nine-point game. You're like, oh, okay, now we can play basketball.
And the Lakers never did, partly because Austin Reeves tweaked his back. Yeah. You know, in the first quarter, the hamstring injury happens to Luka.
Which actually he was grabbing at that hamstring pretty early in the second quarter.
They checked both of them out at halftime. So they were both okay to go. was not okay with Luka. And then Reeves, I really just don't think should have played the rest of that game. I agree. He was not right. And even though he scored a little bit, he was hurting them so much. The turnovers, the non-existent defense was killer because the Thunder got whatever they wanted offensively.
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