Cade Cunningham, Pistons Open Season vs Tatum, Celtics

Cade Cunningham gets the whole NBA season started. The All-NBA First Team guard and the Pistons host the Celtics at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday at Little Caesars Arena, on NBC and Peacock, in the first game of opening night and a meeting of last season's top two seeds in the East.

Detroit went 60-22 last season, its first 60-win season since 2005-06, and grabbed the No. 1 seed. Cunningham averaged 23.9 points, a career-high 9.9 assists, 5.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals, per ClickOnDetroit, and finished fifth in MVP voting with two first-place votes, per CBS Sports. The season still ended early, in Game 7 of the East semifinals against Cleveland.

Detroit Adds Shooting Around Cunningham

The Pistons kept the core and went looking for spacing. John Collins came over from the Clippers in a sign-and-trade to start at power forward, and Isaiah Joe arrived in a trade with Oklahoma City, per NBA.com. Ausar Thompson signed a five-year, $155 million rookie scale extension, per Bleacher Report, and Jalen Duren, an All-NBA Third Team pick last season, signed a long-term extension after drawn-out talks to stay Cunningham's main pick-and-roll partner.

The identity has not changed. Detroit forced a league-high 16.9 turnovers per game last season and held opponents to 44.3% shooting, third-lowest in the NBA, per NBA.com.

"When you play to your identity every night, you don't skip steps," coach J.B. Bickerstaff said, per NBA.com. "You don't miss the moment, and we try to play Pistons basketball every single night."

Tatum and George, Together

Boston made the loudest trade of the summer, sending Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia for a package built around Paul George and ending the Brown and Jayson Tatum partnership. Tatum, a four-time All-NBA First Team pick, has fully recovered from the Achilles tear he suffered in the 2025 playoffs, per NBA.com. George, 36, played just 78 games over two seasons with the Sixers.

"It's refreshing. Hopefully, I can remain healthy," George told The Boston Globe. "I'm ecstatic with being here, being around these guys, like they brought something else out of me that, to be quite frank, has been buried."

Former Knicks big man Mitchell Robinson, signed as a free agent, also makes his Celtics debut. Boston's home opener is Friday against the Knicks at TD Garden.

What to Watch

If you are building an early-slate lineup, Cunningham's 9.9 assists a night last season make him the steadiest floor in this game.

Detroit spent the summer hearing it was a 60-win team that came up short. Beating Tatum and the new-look Celtics at home in the first game of the season is a pretty good way to start answering that.